Challenge of the Superfriends: The End
by Denizen1
Summary: The end of the Superfriends continuity comes when the Legion of Doom, to be victorious over the Justice League, travels to another universe to make an alliance with a mysterious, horrific entity. New chapter: 'A Long Delayed Confrontation.' The third and final act begins with the defeat of an old enemy and the introduction of a new one.
1. Odyssey

The swamp was shallow and wooded, surrounded by lush reeds and grasses; a bayou of sorts. Not far beyond it was a bog, a wetland of soft, spongy ground without a drain. The bog was covered with plant debris and water-growing moss creeping out from the water's edge, nearly blanketing the water's surface.

There were pools, marshy areas that might have been quicksand, grassy tussocks rising from this swamp with moss hanging from them, as well as creepers, vines, and dead-black orchids. Tall dead trees rose out of the water, of the kind that had thin trunks that start on a black tangle of roots that barely come out of the surface. The trunks were black for the first few feet or so, and after that length they became bone-white with small black spots, and they were naked and without branches; and grew tall, ending at the very top in a small head of thin branches with tiny gray leaves.

A shrill cackle echoed through the swamp, followed by the cooing of a bird. Somewhere a witch was laughing.

The tips of the first rays of the sun warmed the swamp's still surface and then cascading ripples of growing waves dotted the murky black waters, moving away from an epicenter of determined origin. Then the pattern of the ripples began to change into something more chaotic.

Suddenly the body of liquid bulged, lifting into the sky. The churn became a great boiling, the waves lifting dozens, perhaps hundreds of feet tall, flinging gobbets of froth into the air. The dome of water then broke, revealing to the surface world something breathtaking.

The Hall of Doom's dome reared up over the swamp like a mighty mountain peak. Its bottom was tapered, the rim flared. Twin oval windows of dusky obsidian glass were set to either side of the Hall's façade, resembling two black eyes. Those fifteen-foot-wide, six-foot-high teardrop view-ports possessed titanium alloy lids, which could be quickly sealed to protect the eighteen-inch-thick, pressure-proof glass at a moment's notice. All in all it resembled the shining black helmet of some ancient warlord.

The Hall's creators were proud of this fortress, and they concealed the location well. The swamp was not known to their foes, and would likely never be known to them. It could have been any swamp on Earth: Slaughter Swamp located outside of Gotham City, or the Louisiana bayou where the Swamp-Thing was sighted frequently. Any swamp at all.

No representatives from any of the world's governments would conduct raids on this place, nor would costumed prodigies knock on its door. No, the Hall's creators had given their headquarters the ability of surface, subterranean, or underwater travel. When linked with the time conveyor or similar device, the Hall could also journey into the depths of outer space or other historical periods. If they so desired they could move the Hall to the top of the greatest mountain on Earth in triumph. That day would come, its creators had often promised, but until then it was always docked in swamps for the purpose of concealment.

Within shining corridors of metal ran for hundreds of feet only to loop back on themselves. Laced beneath the surface of these halls was circuitry for teleportation and holographic technology. All in all, the Hall of Doom was amalgamation of Coluan and Korugarian technologies, filled out with some devices from Gorilla City.

In one room of the headquarters ranks of robot doubles, each one nestled in an alcove full of numerous analytic and diagnostic instruments, gathered dust. In another a single chair sat across from a towering wall of television screens. In a hanger a hydrofoil shaped like a manta-ray awaited repair. These special chambers were interrupted by the more common living quarters, laboratories, storage rooms, and armory.

In its center of the hall was a huge chamber decorated in copper trim. It was appropriate that the walls were lined with cold marble, for what better place for the Legion of Doom than a mausoleum?

The Legion's members waited around a large horseshoe-shaped table of redwood stood in the center of the wood-planked floor.

Seated behind a high speaking lectern, Lex Luthor occupied the primary position, his expression one of excitement. At his right, purple-gloved hand was a wooden gavel.

On his right sat Captain Cold, Cheetah, Solomon Grundy, Gorilla Grodd, Brainiac and Sinestro. On his left sat Scarecrow, Bizarro, the Riddler, Toyman, Giganta and finally Black Manta. Their chairs were high-backed and comfortable, upholstered in leather.

These were the world's greatest villains and this was their place, the place where evil kept watch over the world. This was the place where the Thirteen gathered to lay their plans for their triumphs, and lick their wounds from their inevitable failures.

And now the Legion waited for Luthor to speak. The air was stuffy, the echo of their breathing flat and short. And he could hear them, but when he tried to speak, he was unable to say a word, so great was his excitement. At first he flushed, then grinned. His gaze was glassy.

Luthor then realized he needed a visual aid if he were to reach them.

As Luthor removed a device from a pouch on his vest, he recalled those strange events of yesterday...

* * *

The device was a modification of the interspacial time conveyor--a piece of technology that Luthor had acquired in the Legion's dealings with the Fearians, a strange, tripled-headed race who had in turn taken the technology from beings stranger still. Beings that created a brand of technology so advanced that it bordered on magic.

While Luthor was a talented scientist who able to consolidate the latest technological achievements from all over the globe, he preferred to learn bits and pieces of knowledge from those who did the tedious experimenting and inventing. Indeed, Luthor sometimes compared himself to the mythological Prometheus. He knew the sciences of long dead alien civilizations: not just those Krypton that he gleaned from his occasional intrusions into Superman's Fortress of Solitude, but also the ruins on that unnamed planet that Luthor himself had christened Lextor and was virtually a god among its inhabitants.

His position as leader of the Legion of Doom afforded opportunities to learn from other brilliant minds: Gorilla Grodd and Brainiac (although these two were unsettlingly inhuman in their thought processes and were often reluctant to share their knowledge with a 'mere human'). Even madmen like the Riddler, the Scarecrow and Toyman occasionally had their own unique insights and were more inclined to share them. Luthor would also have enjoyed examining the inner workings of Sinestro's power ring, Leonard Snart's cyclotron or any of the miniaturized alien cities in Brainiac's collection stolen from countless inhabited worlds.

His frequent clashes with his foes gave Luthor chances to hone his intellect---the Batman's mind was keen; the synapses of Flash's thought processes were accelerated as much as the rest of the Scarlet Speeder's body, the database of Green Lantern's ring contained vast constellations of alien knowledge, and even the hated Superman was said to possess some degree of superhuman intellect. All were worthy opponents for the great scientist, and Luthor--more often than not--was able to outwit them all on numerous occasions.

But now he would perform this one experiment himself. Modified, the time conveyor would not transport him in time, but rather to another place, a place not of this universe. There could be an infinite number of parallel universes, countless alternate Earths in which existence might be slightly different or even unrecognizable.

In moments, if his experiment worked, Lex Luthor would break open a doorway into another dimension, a parallel universe--maybe even more than one: an infinite passage to a million, million dimensions. One of them could provide what he had sought for years: the means to destroy his hated foe and take the world as his own.

He held up the rectangular pad with its many dials, buttons, and lighted displays, and a satisfied smile touched his lips. He had possessed this item for many years, and, through experimentation, found that it could transport any desired object to a certain place or time---a useful feature when escaping the Justice League if one of the Legion's schemes were foiled. Its other abilities were still unknown to him, but occasionally, the device emitted an odd sound--a _ping-ping_ sound at random moments.

From what the Fearians had told him, beneath its metal casing was constrained an actual black hole, and the unfathomable power of that celestial event was at his fingertips.

Luthor knew what a black hole was. When a star died, it collapsed in on itself, became so dense that nothing could escape its terrible gravity, not even light. It was perhaps the most destructive force in the universe. The device used that power to fold space-time.

Before he began the experiment Luthor took a moment to look around the laboratory. It contained the full diversity of interests, all his pastimes and fascinations. A long shelf ran along every wall, crowded with racks of vials, stoppered bottles of glass, and assorted rocks and mineral specimens. Many were different forms of Kryptonite. In a beaker on a table were black crystalline fragments, samples from the Monolith of Evil that Luthor hoped could one day be grown into a replacement. On another table were the arranged stolen components for a super-computer that would rival the Justice League's if it were ever completed. Leaning against one wall was the enlargement ray during "the Giants of Doom" conquest. The device itself was the size of a tractor. An impressive device, though, without its Sorium fuel, it was useless.

Taking a deep breath, Luthor flicked a switch. A circuit had been completed.

In the next instant a glowing line of orange appeared several feet in front of him. The line expanded, and with a deep thunderous _BOOM_ resounding through the laboratory, the line grew into a tall oval. A very tall oval.

A portal.

A thrill of triumph raced through him. The power of the cosmos--unleashed yet contained. A doorway had been opened, connecting two worlds that were never meant to touch. He had an urge to throw his head back and laugh into the chaotic fury of the rift. The scientific mind within resisted the urge. He wished to exploit the opportunity to the fullest possible extent, to extract from it the greatest possible advantage, and he must, therefore, not act precipitously. The thrill of discovery could be as intoxicating as wine, and many times more addictive.

In front of him, the portal's color darkened, somehow taking on the color of nothingness. All around, the laboratory seemed to be sharper, clearer, as though everything around him had focused, revealing incredible amounts of detail.

Luthor knew that he was on the verge of discovering his destiny. Grandiose as such a notion might be, he sensed that the secrets of victory over the hated Superman would be revealed to him in this experiment.

But then how many times did he encounter this same feeling before? How many times was he convinced of success only to have it dashed to pieces? What was the number of his defeats? Of the Legion's defeats?

_What defeats?_

The Legion had imprisoned and lost control of a being that claimed to be the incarnation of Evil itself. They had bent time and traveled across the millennia to conquer a future Earth devastated by war. Even the very climate of the world had once been changed through their actions on behalf of an alien race they had aligned themselves with.

Yet every time they were thwarted. Sometimes by the League, other times by their own arrogance. He needed something more, else the Legion would lose coherence. The fact that Luthor led such a diverse and bickering group was a testament to his persuasive abilities, and for years these skill had enabled him to keep control.

Now he was losing that control. Luthor sensed that. That much was clear. If he failed now, the Legion would disband, return to their individual and seperate vendettas or flee to distant regions of the world and hide.

Desperation takes over where rationality fails.

Quickly Luthor donned a white vinyl, airtight spacesuit; an adapted version of the standard gear that NASA had developed for astronauts, intended primarily to shield the wearer from the icy vacuum of interplanetary space. A clear glass helmet completed the suit, equipped with internal breathing purifiers and an oxygen reserve.

Girded for whatever came next, Luthor raised one trembling hand, as if signaling "hello" to someone, and eased it forward into the portal, feeling for the transition point between this world and. . .whatever lay beyond the doorway.

Then the power, a force beyond reckoning that reached around him, intruded into his universe, enveloping him without pause for consent or complaint.

The void rose up around him, embracing.

Unresisting, Luthor fell into the space between the worlds and was gone.


	2. Contact

Space contracted and expanded to signal his arrival into this other place.

Luthor floated unsupported in whiteness. There was a source of light somewhere, but he could not clearly see it. His eyes blinked against the brightness. It wasn't blinding, merely irritating because there was nothing to focus on. As there was no weight to be drawn from the brightness, he drifted for what he considered minutes. There was no sound except for the rush of his blood and the pounding of his heart.

So, was this the Phantom Zone that he learned about from the archives of Superman's Fortress? Or was it the Infra-Space that British intelligence discovered during the 1960s that he gleaned from lost records? Could this be the famous Astral Plane glimpsed by mediums and mystics from around the world? Luthor decided that this must be what scientists had termed the 'Bleed,' a place where all possible universes converge.

_So what now? _he thought._  
_

It was a flutter of panic when Luthor realized, that, while protected from any possible radiation and supplied with oxygen, he had no certain means of returning. He had no food, a limited supply of water and his oxygen would only last several hours. In response to that thought, he gripped the time conveyor like a talisman, and wondered.

Should he simply press the same sequence of buttons? Would that return him to his own universe, or take him further from it? Should he try?

_Wait a few hours, and then try, _he reasoned. In the meantime the scientist would explore this realm; wherever this was.

Nothing could have prepared Luthor for happened next.

Music poured from the blinding void and spun Luthor's soul in a terrible rapture, a music that drove his thoughts, compelling beyond all compelling beauties, horrid beyond all nightmares, and the dark majesty of an useen choir quenched his spirit. Unconsciously, he closed his eyes and shuddered in pleasure.

_Music here? How?  
_

And then the music was cut off and Luthor continued to drift. What was that? What is happening here? The music was so beautiful, that he would have given anything to hear it again. Anything.

As he floated, he slowly became aware of another presence, far off at the very fringes of his awareness, an apparition that seemed to dance in and out of reality.

And just as Luthor became aware of the wraith's existence, Luthor somehow knew that the wraith noticed Luthor's presence in this void. Luthor narrowed his eyes against the whiteness and gray, trying to focus on it.

Out of the dead space, from the heart of the nothingness came a voice, silken, deep, and strange. "_Iai see temak-re_" the voice said. "_See nod reel."_

Although Luthor could not understand their meaning, he perceived arrogance in the words, hubris with a sense of triumph. As he floated there in the ether, he noticed that the presence no longer seemed far at all, but rather distractingly nearby.

"Who are you?" Luthor asked, an external speaker on his helmet carrying his voice to the void beyond.

"English?" The same voice responded in the named language with a tone of genuine surprise. "That is a language that I have not heard in ages. Tis a dead tongue on this side." The voice was silky, masculine with a rumbled purr that put Luthor on his guard. The presence also enunciated its tone as it spoke, making the words seem calculated, purposeful.

From the white nothingness, a shape composed itself. It shifted restlessly from form to from, but fixed on none. The shape's planes and angles moved in unnatural contortions.

It hurt Luthor's eyes, and wrenched his insides.

After recovering, Luthor replied, "I am Alexander Luthor, a scientist from the planet Earth. Who are you?" Directness is often the best course of action.

Luthor suddenly had an impression of a smile, one as large as the moon. "I would have to ask you the same question," the voice stated. The grin dissipated, and Luthor shook his head.

_Hallucinations?_ He asked himself.

"I am your confessor, conqueror Luthor." the voice said. "Tell me everything. Tell me those desires that gnaw at your soul, so that I may relieve them." The planes then collapsed into a shapeless mass of vapor, blue-white. The mass had no discernible limbs or features, about seven and a half feet long, more than three feet wide that hung together despite the way it whirled and roiled upon itself and dissipated.

"I am a representative of a group that wishes to captain the fate of my world," Luthor said, no longer certain that he was being heard. He looked in other directions, but just white mist answered his gaze. _What game was this?_

The emptiness of space gave way to red, yellow and chartreuse mists born from some unperceived location upon ghostly winds. Now, there was a firm surface underfoot.

Looking down, Luthor noticed that he now stood on a circular piece of land, the floor as smooth as marble, but on every other side stretched an opalescent white void. It was a floating island in a sea of white, gray and black emptiness.

"Continue."

"Yes…I," Luthor began and then instead asked, "Where are we?"

"In the spaces between," the voice replied.

"Then alternate dimensions do exist?"

"Yes," the voice answered.

"Then there are Earths where Canada was invaded during the American Revolution and where the capital of the United States is named after Benedict Arnold instead of George Washington?" he asked. "Earths where Nazi Germany won the war and ruled the world?"

"There are more worlds between Heaven and Earth than dreamt of by philosophers," the voice said "We are between your universe and mine."

"So this is not your realm?"

"No. As you are, I am only visiting this place," the voice said. "It is here where I can cause pockets of sustainable conditions to exist. Pockets that I maintain in my experiments." In Luthor's mind, he saw two gauntleted hands, each bejeweled; they moved with a pianist's precision with a series of quick gestures.

"Experiments?" Luthor asked, and the mental image faded. They weren't hallucinations then, so what were they? Mental illusions?

Yes, illusions, visual aids projected into his mind so that the meaning of the entity's words was clearer. Perhaps his mind only interpreted them in such dreamlike symbolic imagery. An interesting quirk.

"Like you, I am also a scientist of a sort," the voice said. "You can remove your breathing apparatus, as I have already provided atmosphere. I can also supply you with nourishment if you desire." An image of a glass and a stream of pink liquid pouring into it entered Luthor's mind.

Luthor shook his head to decline the offer. He could not trust this being, not any other with his life. His reserves would last for hours more, long enough for this conversation to end. Instead he asked, "No, I would rather that you show yourself."

"You could hardly stand the sight," it sounded like a warning, and Luthor saw a grotesque mask of a Japanese Oni floating in the air and then it was gone.

Luthor wanted to ask for more details, but decided to continue instead. "But at every turn, we find ourselves opposed by costumed cretins blinded by self-righteousness."

No answer came immediately. Luthor blinked uncertainly. In the distance, not high above eye leave a fuzzy patch of light no larger than a coin appeared. The light was pale, a faint white that pulsated slowly. It seemed to revolve, and to resolve itself into still smaller points of whiteness. The points arranged themselves into a spiral.

The slowly revolving spiral rose from eye level to a point overhead like the sun rising from horizon to zenith, but the lights separated also, increasing in brightness as they did so until they spanned the space above him, slowly swirling.

He blinked and then he realized they were not just pinpoints of light, but visible star surfaces, with planets revolving around them. Soon an astounding abundance of stars surrounded him on all sides, more than he had ever seen from a single location before. Just by moving his eyes, he could spot an astonishing variety of stellar phenomena: giant pillars of dust and gas, great globular clusters filled with millions of shining blue suns, supernovas spewing light and matter in their violent death throes, quasars, pulsars. He could black holes made visible against the backdrop of exploding stars. He saw the swirls of distant galaxies, ringed planets, volcanic moons, giant comets, the colored pallets of nebulae.

"Your situation is not unknown. It is one that is familiar to me," the voice said. "Indeed it is an old story."

Luthor was too stunned to reply. He saw the great wheels of galaxies now, pools of ionized gas coalescing into fresh stars. He saw the constellations move into new configurations.

While Luthor stood in stunned silence, the voice continued, "The inhabitants of your world refuse responsibility for their own actions, or for their existences. They live in a number of principalities, each with its own government, but there is no overall dictator to cut through bureaucracies. The deeds and thoughts of life are arbitrarily divided between those they call 'good' and 'evil.' The good are supposed to make life better for all people, and the evil worsen it."

The configurations twisted into shapes that hurt his eyes, and Luthor closed them.

"In my world, the nations are my subjects as much as constellations themselves," the voice said. "Millions depend upon my whim for their very existence."

When he opened them, he saw it.

A crown.

The galactic clusters, everything within sight had formed a crown, blazing in the total dark. Spiral arms formed decorative patterns, and clusters of black holes formed jewels. Its beauty and perfection were indescribable.

"In your universe, you and your group are mighty beings; yet you have not yet pulled down the stars to do you homage, as I have in mine," the voice said.

_Impossible_, Luthor thought. _It's some trickery, an illusion, like the visual aids._ Though he closed his eyes from this phantasmagoric vision, still the image stayed with him, as if burned onto the insides of his eyelids. He opened his eyes and the gray and white void again surrounded him. The stars were nowhere to be seen.

"Because we are opposed," Luthor answered.

"Tell me, Luthor," the voice said. "Have your opponents, despite their claims to goodness and morality, made their planet a utopia of well-meaning intentions, a paradise of delight?"

At the last word, images came to Luthor's mind, and with them came sensations, more than ever before.

_Sunlight; waving corn stalks; clouds moving across a blue sky; a woman's smile; a child tottering toward an old woman in a white dress; dance music reverberating from somewhere; a girl in a bathing plunging into blue water, droplets of spray raining downward; a woman's smile again. A little girl, with gold hair; a hurdy-gurdy playing; the smell of roast chestnuts; a child bounding past; the distinctive impact of a cricket bat connecting with a ball on a summer afternoon, the nod at the ripple of applause._

"No." Luthor replied. Understanding came to Luthor then. "You're like me then. Like us"

"Yes, once," the voice answered. "Your world would define me as evil." At the word 'evil', Luthor saw a black sinuous shape crawl and slither in the corner of his eye. He turned and it was gone; another illusion.

"But I didn't allow arbitrary titles to define me, nor any opponent to prevent me from taking control of my universe and turning it into the utopia I knew it could be. I rule my universe, so too could you rule yours, Luthor."

Luthor stifled a snort, and said, "Tell me. Tell me what you propose."

"Separate we have both achieved much," exulted the voice. "There is no imaginable limitation to what we could accomplish together. The possibilities are altogether too delightful to resist."

The voice's excitement was infectious. Luthor smiled and shivered with a sensation of imminent triumph.

"I am your confessor, Luthor," the voice paused. "But I can also be you and your little group's 'benefactor' as well. I have sciences and technologies you do not, millennia of experience in conquering worlds, weapons and powers you could not even conceive of."

Luthor paused and said, "I will need to consult with my peers, and make preparations."

"Yes. Yes. Yes," the voice hissed, excitement clear in its tone. "Bring your friends, your allies. Bring them here so that I may receive them. You all have so much to learn; about me, about yourselves." The voice paused. "But first, here."

A click could be heard from the device in Luthor's hand. A piercing "PING!" burst from the time conveyor, screeching as if under the sway of pure terror as it repeated the single sound: 'PING! PING! PING! PING!" After the last ping, the device fell silent.

"What did you do?" asked Luthor, his tone instantly suspicious.

"An edit. Your means of conveyance should now be able to fully cross this void between your universe and mine. You have only to perform the same sequence that brought you here, and you should arrive at my place of residence in my universe. Simply reverse the order and you will return home."

Luthor smiled. "Thank you." He could barely contain his excitement at the prospect of seeing what new wonders that other universe held. Whatever it was like, Luthor would bend it to his will and incorporate into his own plans. "I'll try to set up a communication relay in the meantime. From it you can learn all the details of our plight-"

"-so that I can better aid you," the voice finished for him.

"Yes," Luthor said. "So, I will see you in…?"

"Let's make it a day," the voice replied.

"A day then." Luthor said and then asked "Twenty-four hours? Each sixty minutes long?"

"Each minute comprised of sixty seconds, which are roughly equal to the rhythm of your heart," the voice answered. "It is the same measure in both your universe and mine."

"Good." Luthor said. "Until then."

"Until then Alexander."

Luthor pressed the sequence of switches on the device. In front of him, an orange line grew into an oval with a deep roaring 'BOOM!' Grasping the time conveyor in a gloved, Luthor leaped through the swirling tunnel.

* * *

Luthor floated down through night: an impossible darkness. From beneath his cloak of reason rose mindless fear, a chilling wave that subsumed everything that constituted rationality and intelligence. Vertigo followed.

There was a sudden jarring underfoot as his feet came in contact with something solid. His knees buckled and collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.

He opened his eyes. The world did a slow spin, then settled around him. Luthor was back in his laboratory in the Hall of Doom.

He got to his feet, and rushed out of the room, still wearing his life-support suit. Down a silvery corridor he went, seeking the Legion's archives. He encountered no other Legionnaires on his way there. They were elsewhere, hatching their various schemes and making their preparations to disband, and Luthor would have to summon them for a meeting tomorrow when the benefactor's appointment came due.

Luthor hated them.

Oh, he tolerated them. The others would be his foot stones to revenge against the Superman, but Luthor despised them all the same. Despised their failures, envied them for their metahuman abilities. The Legion was disbanding. He could sense that. That would be the subject of the next meeting. He had to put a stop to that. Victory was now so close, and he needed the Legion to make that happen.

Now inside the archives, he brought the Hall's computers with all their twinkling lighted displays online and fed them instructions, selecting files for conversion. He considered providing his new ally with a collection of misinformation-to manipulate him-but twenty-four hours was simply not enough time to prepare such an elaborate deception. For now he would fulfill his part of the bargain. And hopefully the entity would teach the Legion all that it knew. What would happen after that was already in the back of Luthor's devious mind and would be carried out with the rest of the Legion of Doom's help.

He punched several buttons on a console, and recordings of the Legion's exploits were converted into holographic imagery. Luthor considered sending a dictionary file to give the Benefactor knowledge of this world's language, but then recalled how the entity already spoke to Luthor in English. A fact that Luthor didn't question at the time, but now suspicion raised its head.

_How did it know English?_

Luthor didn't even think the Benefactor was anything resembling a human being, and yet it spoke in English. Not only did it know English, it had also paraphrased lines from Shakespeare. How could that be? He paused to think over the possible repercussions of that fact.

No, Luthor pushed away the thought. Mastery of language was not serious cause enough to delay his plans. The Fearians spoke in English. The Incarnation of Evil spoke in English. Even the humans in the distant future spoke English. So why was it odd that a being from another universe could speak it as well?

In addition to speaking the language, the being had employed poetic turns of phrase, metaphor, hyperbole, in other words, exaggeration, bravado. The benefactor was an illusion master, Luthor was sure of that. The being was a con-artist, a tin-plated despot who likely impressed new visitors with such displays in order to conceal its own weaknesses.

After all, that being had boasted of ruling an entire universe. No being could that be so powerful as to control such vast distances of space. More likely, the being ruled a small fiefdom of terrified peasants through its elaborate light shows. The being still had tricks and knowledge that the Legion could use, but certainly not the cosmic power it claimed.

Learn, gain knowledge and then betray, it was his way of life.

Yes. The benefactor was just a charlatan, certainly not a god.

Luthor smiled, and keyed in the sequence of buttons that would again open the portal. He would beam the holograms through it, and with a little luck the benefactor would find them and study them. Luthor had his own plans for what came after. He had played this game before.


	3. A Legion United

The memory faded, and Luthor returned to the present. The other Legionnaires stared at him, waiting for him to speak.

"As leader of the Legion of Doom, I pronounce that all other projects are to be suspended," Luthor said. Grunts and gasps were heard, but all members remained otherwise silent as Luthor continued. "Work is suspended on the mind-control gas meant to enshroud London; halted are the batches of deadly neurotoxin to be released above the undersea realm of Atlantis. The artificial volcano to be set off in Gorilla City is to stop until further notice."

Black Manta spoke up, "All because you have something else in mind, Luthor?"

"I do." He held up the time conveyor for the other twelve to see. "Behold, the way to another universe, home to one that has promised us victory over the Super-Friends."

"Who is this?" asked Sinestro, the golden band on his finger emitting yellow sparks in response to his frenzied thoughts. "It could not be the Weaponeers of Qward. From what I understand, my own arrangement with them is exclusive."

"No," Luthor said with mild amusement. "I believe not,"

"Then tell us who it is," the ex-Green Lantern asked.

"Would you believe the Wizard of Oz?" Luthor replied.

A silence as dense as water filled the conference room fell. Several of the more inhuman members of the Legion acquired expressions of confusion at the reference. Gorilla Grodd tilted his head and gave a bemused grunt, while the dead eyes of Bizarro stared straight ahead, unblinking. Brainiac shared Bizarro's blankness while data processed along the diodes on the Coluan android's cranium.

"Do not play games with us." Toyman replied, the silver bells of his skullcap lightly twinkling.

"The metaphor fits," Luthor said, finding the harlequin's wordplay irritating. "I found a ruler, a despot who controls his domain absolutely. But like the fabled Wizard, this being rules through trickery, slight-of-hand, illusions."

"How can you be certain?" demanded Sinestro, almost a threat.

"Yes, '_certainty_', " The Riddler added. The green-suited master of conundrums seemed to be barely paying attention, his focus on the arrangement of a series of garishly-painted tarot cards set on the table before him. "That's the _question_."

Luthor sighed inwardly. Once again, for what seemed to the thousandth time, Luthor questioned the logic of including the Riddler within their dark fraternity. The madman was patently useless-no meta-human abilities at all, and what genius he possessed was clouded by insane obsession. Indeed, the Riddler was worse than useless. On occasion the only thing that Riddler did was actually help the Justice League to defeat the Legion by providing them clues to their latest plans.

"I know a charlatan when I see one. He tried to impress me with a bombastic light show to convince me he was almighty." Luthor said, while inside he speculated when would be the right time to order Bizarro to snap the madman's neck and free them all from the Riddler's unintentional treachery. "I suspect much, if not all, of it was mental illusion. It is unthinkable that any being could rule an entire universe."

"I think the logic of your assessment is questionable," came a resonating voice, cold and emotionless. "In an infinite number of parallel universes, the potential number of intelligent life-forms is also infinite, and so too would be the variations be infinite. Theoretically, anything that could be imagined must exist in an infinite realm."

Luthor turned to his left and the green-hued Brainiac returned his gaze without expression. Of the entire Legion, only the Coluan android could claim Luthor's respect. They had been the closest of partners in years past; a team of twin geniuses plotting and executing ingenious plans against the power of the Superman. Still, Luthor could barely keep his anger in check at this effrontery. His lip curled and then he forced it to relax. Luthor respected the android, but that did not mean he did not envy Brainiac for the knowledge and technology he possessed, which was another reason for hatred. Luthor hated them all, some less than others.

"Your opinion is noted, Brainiac." Luthor said, brushing aside the objection. "As I was saying, for the past day I have exchanged information with the ruling power of that universe, and he is sympathetic to our cause."

"We have been here before," asked Toyman. "And how many times have we failed?"

"Sixteen," Brainiac answered, rhetorical questions lost on the Coluan.

"How will your friend aid us?" rumbled Gorilla Grodd, clearly interested. Luthor noted that the beast's eyed the conveyance in Luthor's hand with undisguised avarice.

"He will provide us with weapons, knowledge as well as training." said Luthor. "He has promised to tutor us in ways to refine our own innate abilities to their fullest potential."

It was then that Scarecrow spoke up, his raspy voice issuing from his leather mask, "And then when he has taught us all that he can teach us?"

Luthor smiled, "We will then crush the Justice League, conquer the world, and then return to our benefactor's universe to conquer that as well."

"Of course," Sinestro laughed. "Why rule one universe, when you can have two?"

"He has only ensured his own downfall by agreeing to help us." Scarecrow exulted, his eyes bore through the holes in his mask with increased intensity.

It was then that Luthor decided to bring up the topic he so dreaded. "I knew you were all planning to leave," Luthor said as pleasantly as possible. His left hand gripped the podium with bloodless fingers so great was his concealed anger. "To disband."

The other twelve moved at the accusation, clearly uneasy. Bizarro's eyes lit with cold fire, the muscles on Giganta's arms twitched and rippled with barely contained transformation, Grodd's fur stood on end, Solomon Grundy ground his decaying teeth, Cheeta raked her claws across the table and Captain Cold's hand was poised over the freeze-gun in his holster.

Luthor eyed these figures cautiously. This was not the first time that Luthor had feared for his life when confronted by these meta-human abominations. Luthor's mind was his only weapon in the world full of monsters and gods. In all other respects he was a mere human, who could be crushed at any moment. He would have to phrase his next few words carefully. Even gods could be tricked; Luthor had proven that many times before. Now it was time to convince them again.

"You all want to kill me," Luthor said. "I know you do. But it is best that you do not try. I have made certain arrangements-which, no offense, everyone, I see no point in revealing to either one of you prematurely-to ensure that any such ill-advised move would be both unsuccessful and fatal to yourselves."

The others didn't change their postures, but waited for Luthor to say more._ Careful..._

"Have we gathered here to change the world, or are we merely met in combat? Do you spare me, or do you die yourselves?" He glared fiercely them with menace of appalling force. The other twelve studied Luthor thoughtfully for a moment, then made varying gestures of truce.

"There is a time to kill. It is not yet. Victory is near." Luthor's attention turned in Brainiac's direction. "Old friend, you have been monitoring the world's networks. Why don't you tell everyone of your findings?"

The android seemed somewhat hesitant, but eventually he nodded and stood up to speak. "The Kryptonian will be addressing the United Nations in the city known as 'New York'. The agenda being global disarmament; all nations on this planet shall give up their weapons of mass destruction to pave the way for peace."

Luthor scowled at the last word. His mind considered possibilities and what they might mean for the Legion and himself.

Brainiac continued, his voice never wavering. In many ways, the android appeared to be a humanoid recorder. "The meta-human designated as 'the Flash' has been seen conveying nourishment and medical supplies to various settlements in dire need. He has been doing so continuously for the past several days, not ceasing."

Leonard Snart, better known as 'Captain Cold', gave a grin at the news. "Fool," he whispered.

Brainiac paused a moment, diodes glowing if receiving new information and then continued "Meanwhile, the keeper of the Oanian power ring is assisting in repairs of satellites above this world." Brainiac said. "Wonder Woman has been sighted in the region known as the Middle East, where the female has been engaged in-"

"Yes, yes, that's quite enough." Luthor interrupted. Brainiac's expression was unreadable, but the diodes on his head pulsed crimson as if in anger. "What this all means, is that the Justice League-the so-called _'Super-Friends'_-have moved beyond us, moved on to other things. Our months-long absence and seclusion has led them to concern themselves with mundane details. Now they are not looking for us."

The Legion's expressions were varied, but Luthor hoped understanding was coming to them.

Luthor continued. "The longer we do not act, the more complacent the League becomes. We stay in that other universe for several months, perhaps as long even a year, and the League just might forget us."

"It would suit the fools," Toyman said. "It would fit the pattern so far."

Sinestro rose to his feet at that and said "And they will be utterly unprepared for when we return with the powers and knowledge of that other universe."

"Exactly!" Luthor said, his excitement at the conclusion uncontainable. "Even though the entity's powers are almost certainly illusion, it could still be very useful. The League's complacency will serve our needs regardless of what we find on the other side."

"And to think..." said Scarecrow, followed by a laugh from the slit in his leather mask. "We were going to disband."

"So, there it is, my dear friends..._allies_." Luthor said. "Do we disband, go our separate ways, or to we bravely go exploring a new universe of wonders, with its own grails to discover, worlds to conquer, knowledge to be gleaned?" Luthor paused a moment to let it sink in, several shifted in their seats. Even Brainiac's expression changed at the mention of the last point.

"The choice is obvious." Luthor smiled confidently. He could tell their minds were working furiously, trying to imagine the possibilities. In the light of so fantastic, so grand a proposition, it was hard to consider things rationally. _Ah, this was the reward of leadership._ The satisfaction was almost enough to outweigh the contempt he felt for them. Only Bizarro, Brainiac and Grodd chose to remain silent, but their approval was clear.

He allowed himself to bask in it for several seconds and then raised a hand for silence.

"We are the Legion of Doom," Luthor continued. "Long ago we came together, some of us from distant galaxies. Like our foes, we are united in purpose. They are mighty, as are the governments and structures that support them. But, we are united ourselves and are no less than them. We have had many disappointments and false-starts, but we endured because we knew some day victory would be ours."

There was silence in the chamber.

"Today is that day."

With that Luthor synchronized the conveyor with the Hall of Doom's hull, and then moved dials and pressed buttons in the same sequence as the first time.

_PING!_ The conveyor vibrated in Luthor's hand, growing louder.

_PING! _So loud, in fact, that the twin glass windows begins to wobble. How a small thing like that could make such large noise baffled Luthor. It seemed to get louder and louder.

_PING! PING! PING! PING! PING! PING! PING! PING! PING! PING! PING! PING!_

The Hall resonated with the sound; the super structure sounding with a deepening roar that suggested that the base was about to tear apart. The Legion looked nervously at each other. In the past teleportation had been smooth. Once second you were here, and then you were there; it was simple. But now the Hall rumbled, a freight train sound, and then shuddered and rattled. To the Legion it felt as though reality was trying to twist.

Like the glow of a dying sun, an orange light came out through the obsidian portals. Dying daylight in a dying world. The glow of the portal as it encased the Hall. The Legion felt it flow over them and recoiled as though they would be burnt up by the bright blurriness.

It didn't harm them. Actually, it felt good. It was good. Light was everywhere; their whole world was filled up with orange-bright, clean, powerful, impinging directly on the mind like thoughts crisp and clear, pure and lucid. It was invigorating, and the more scientifically minded members of the Legion tried not to think about the possibility of dangerous radiation.

Against the backdrop of orange, Legion heard metal screaming somewhere, the superstructure stressing as gravity waves passed through the walls.

All around them, power hummed and sang of enormous energies. Behind Luthor there was a loud bang as something shorted out, and he smelled ozone and burning insulation. The lights flickered and dimmed.

Deeper in the Hall, systems failing and metal tearing could be heard. Each of the Legion grabbed the edge of the conference table, ducking as debris pelted them. The wave pulled Edward Nigma up from his seat, wrenched him away from the table, and slammed him into a bulkhead.

Outside the dark swamp lit up as if the sun had come to Earth, a violent brilliance stretched out upon the skies and created a false sunrise for much of the marshland. Alligators snapped and submerged. In the shadows of a dead tree, a haggish shape lurched away while issuing a cackling laugh. The stagnant waters closest to the shimmering Hall boiled, turned to steam, glowed a dozen different colors, and then froze, and then melted back to liquid as it came into contact with the energies of the Bleed.

There was a banshee shriek of metal stress. And then…

_BOOM!_

The Hall was gone, gone from its home-world-its universe-, taking the Legion with it.

The waters flowed back into the space it occupied.


	4. Universe of Evil

For the super-villains inside the Hall of Doom, traveling between universes was like plunging through the heart of a dying sun, and the Hall stared into it unblinkingly with two black and empty eyes. Inside fiery orange was everywhere; it suffused everything, turning everything blurred and distorted.

Along with the orange glow, each 'PING' came with a deep rumbling sound like distant thunder. The disturbing effects of the illumination and the echoing pulsations were redolent of an immense heart that beat every minute, sending flows of vibrant light into the hall with each pulsation.

Each of the Legion gripped their leather chairs or were grabbing hold of the conference table in front of them. The Riddler was still unconscious from the initial blow and lay in a heap in one corner, muttering in fevered sleep. Sinestro had created a yellow energy cocoon around his body to shield himself from the gravitational forces now affecting them; no one suggested that he share it with others.

For the less superhuman of the super-villains, there was the weight of a thousand griefs pressing down, flattening. Every heartbeat and every tortured breath was racked with pain. Luthor closed his eyes against the orange that suffused everything. For something so bright, there was little heat, oddly enough. It was then that he heard movement, a chair sliding back across the floor, and then a few moments later the light faded from the inside of this closed eyelids slightly. Luthor opened his eyes, shading them with an upraised hand. He turned towards the windows of black glass from which the light was issuing, and saw a figure standing in the right portal, bathed in the orange illumination: Brainiac.

The android's boots were magnetized, adhering his footing to the metallic floor of the Hall. Brainiac stood facing the viewing window, orange lighting shimmered around his form like heat distortions on a desert highway.

"Don't be a fool, Brainiac," Luthor shouted. "Get out of there." Brainiac was still Luthor's ally, and the scientist would hate losing him to whatever radiation was issuing from the Bleed.

"That is exactly what I am doing," the Brain Interactive Construct replied, not turning. "Recall that I am a gatherer of data first and foremost, and my form is not made up of living cells that can metastasize when exposed to radiation."

Luthor closed his eyes against the orange light, knowing that his old partner viewed the Bleed unblinkingly with eyes that were vastly superior to those of a human. "What do you see?"

Brainiac continued to face the portal "We float through mists which I speculate to be formed not of atoms, but by the parts of atoms, parts searching for form and function. Perhaps this is the elemental power from which the totality of physical existence had once come from. I see their quivering-a dance. We journey through a dimensional plane where all concepts of space and time are meaningless or at least are beyond my calculation. I can only record in the hope that understanding will come in future analysis."

"Space is a device to keep everything from being in the same place." Toyman muttered fearfully. "Time is a way to keep everything from happening at once."

"You've killed us, Luthor," Cheetah said groggily, her body compressed by gravitational forces. "Death in the void."

A rumble came from the death pale lips of Solomon Grundy who sat next to her, "Death is not the end."

Brainiac continued to explain, calmly but dispassionately, "No, you have given us the multiverse, Luthor. Endless cosmoses, each containing planets whose numbers are beyond even the calculations of a twelfth-level intellect. I was created to conquer worlds, even the world in which we came from, and yet imagine now what else there is to conquer."

Luthor stared intently at the silhouette, and then looked into the blinding orange, and then looked away again. How foolish to look directly into the sun.

Brainiac went on, still staring outwards, "Think, Luthor, imagine those worlds in those infinite universes, realms beyond even the Computer Tyrants' knowledge. It is doubtful that even their analytical minds could fathom this. Might some of those worlds contain cities? Precious cities? Precious gems to be saved from destruction?"

"I envy you, Brainiac." Luthor whispered, "I cannot see what you see, but I want to." hating himself for the admission. "I_ cannot_ know what you know, but my mind wants to…wants to."

Brainiac ignored the comment and keep his lecture going, "We-all of us in our minuscule cosmos-were in a bubble; within which is a single set of conditions and laws uniformly applied. Removed from such conditions, what might otherwise be possible?"

"Think of it," Brainiac paused to let the point sink in to and continued, "Think of what could be learned from those multitudes of worlds."

"If our universe is a bubble," Black Manta whispered, his dark helmet compressed against the table, "what is the ocean like in which that bubble floats?"

"Bizarro, your body is invulnerable, you can stand with me at the other portal," the android said while still focused on the right circular window, "Our more sensitive allies may need the protection that the two of us alone can provide."

The hideous doppelganger stood up, his faded and threadbare cape rustling. Bizarro lurched across the chamber, each step like that some reanimated corpse-clumsy, stumbling. His arms were kept at his sides, pale hands gripped into fist-powerful to lift whole mountain chains from their settings. Finally the false Superman stood at the left portal, blocking the second blast of orange light. The creature's dead eyes turned to the radiant chaos of the Bleed, and shriveled black lips pulled away to expose his yellow teeth in what passed for a smile.

Brainiac remained fixated, the computers comprising his brain recording the sights before him. Here was where universes were born and died, and the android intended to make the most of this unique opportunity.

While contemplating the fiery mists that comprised the unused stuff of creation images rose up in his mind's eye. At first the glimpses moved past him so fast he could make only the most rudimentary sense of them: He knew neither their origins nor their purpose. But two images stood out, clear and true and blinding.

A wall-a wall larger than galactic clusters, a wall of faces. Brainiac vaguely recognized some of the visages, but he couldn't have put names to any of them. There were so many that the wall seemed like the gleaming crest of a golden wave of faces-humaniod, animal, alien-some horned, some scaled or armor-plated or jewel-encrusted, barbed, spiked or faceted, all of them wearing the same expression: frustration, as if they had been cast down from lofty heights and imprisoned in golden stone. From their mouths issued forth blasts of yellow-hued energy into the void.

A hand-a hand alien in aspect, and yet it held five fingers, each curiously elongated. Like the wall, the hand was unthinkably enormous. He saw that hand cup the swirling form of a universe, and then shift entire galaxies into new configurations, relocate planets; whole constellations of stars; with the ease of a chess grandmaster moving pieces around a checkered board. The beauty and perfection of that hand and its actions were indescribable.

Brainiac shook his head at the twin visions. Despite being artificial, Brainiac did possess emotions, and now he was experiencing a sudden, freezing terror. Brainiac had felt emotions, but never before had he experienced hallucinations. He decided that the images must have been a message, one perhaps sent to him by beings unknown and motives unknowable. Brainiac returned to the orange chaos and no more illusions flashed before him.

"_Ping…_" the time conveyor's heartbeat faded. The orange brightness beyond lost its luster and dimmed. When the shimmering dissipated, the Hall of Doom stood within a vast stadium–like space, with a light crash the Hall shuddered to its stop, settling roughly on an elevated section.

Brainiac turned from the windows and made for the exit, and said "I will analyze the atmosphere for the rest of you."

Sinsistro held up his ring, "If what is out there isn't suitable, my ring can convert it into something we all can survive in."

Luthor nodded, still shaken by the gravitational forces they all experienced. He looked over in the corner and saw, with some satisfaction, that the Riddler was still unconscious, perhaps even dead, from the blow taken previously.

From the twin portals he saw the green-skinned Coulan step forth onto the Hall's extended ramp, turned his head left and right in the darkness. Diodes tinkled in rainbow colors atop his head, and after a few seconds Brainiac gestured for the rest to exit.

One by one the twelve Legionnaires exited and stood and stared for a few moments, some of their mouths hanging open in awe. They had expected a large open area here, but this was off the scale. Even the Hall of Doom was rendered minuscule in this space. From an opening too far above to actually see, an eerie blue light streamed down, illuminating a golden crescent engraved in the center of the floor. Staring at the symbol Luthor was oddly reminded of the first illusion that his new ally had shown him: a smile.

"The air is mechanically conditioned, with very faint traces of chemical coolant, but it is mainly oxygen, more so than usual," the android said. "Combustions would not be advisable here."

Sinestro pointed back at the Hall, "We sustained a fair amount of damage on our way here." Parts of the hall were discolored, carbonized in some places on its dome. Sinestro's ring flared as he moved to make some repairs.

For the other eleven, they walked forward on the silver platform and looked. All around them, power hummed and sang of enormous energies. Somewhere out in the distance, they heard the throbbing murmur of some unknown machinery, the groaning of wheels, and the rattle of chains. The space was vast but it appeared enclosed, like they were deep underground, or perhaps contained within an unthinkably huge structure.

Looking up, the Legion could see that hanging devices surrounded the blue light on the ceiling of the vast chamber. Most of the objects were so far removed from anything they had ever seen that the intended use of them was an utter mystery.

None of them looked benign.

Each one was like a work of art—like the art of Hell itself. The curves, edges, sweep and flow of each one held a particular horror that stabbed deep and twisted without touching them. The slick textures, pointed tips and gleaming edges seemed to probe and cut from a distance. The objects had common elements of shape and color that suggested a profound malevolence, but they were not entirely lacking in their own grotesque beauty. Some seemed as marvels of engineering with parts that moved in complex ways like puzzling anatomic structures from some fantastic organism.

_"Welcome to the Citadel,_" a voice from the darkness. The voice was of a familiar masculine tone, and the words were enunciated. Except instead of the voice being deep and disembodied, coming at Luthor from all sides, it seemed to be coming from a speaking device, perhaps something as conventional as a public announcement speaker.

"Citadel?" asked Luthor.

"As you all have your _Hall_, I have my _Citadel_," the voice answered. "I am pleased beyond words to have the famed Legion of Doom as guests."

"Famed? You know of us?" asked Scarecrow, his lean limbs twitching nervously.

"Yes, Jonathan Crane," the voice answered "Your leader shared the Hall's database with me. There can be no secrets between allies."

"Then you are the one who I spoke with earlier?" Luthor asked.

"Of course," the voice replied.

"And you will teach us your ways so that we might at last be victorious over our foes: the Super-Friends?" Luthor went on, catching himself at the last term. _Really, it was such an absurd name for a group. Any group._

"Yes," the voice said. "Your goals are understood and easily accomplished. From what I have learned, your motivations are strong, desirable. I have sciences and technologies that you do not, as well as powers and capabilities beyond yours. All of which I am willing to share."

The Legion's relief was audible. Luthor smiled, they had endured a stressful journey, but now things were going according to plan. "Tell us what more," he asked.

"It is not my intention to patronize, but compared to us, you are as children. Like all adults, I was once like you. Your world and mine were once very similar, very nearly identical. We faced the same problems a long, long time ago. Scorned by the world, blessed with great power, we nevertheless destroyed all opposition to our goals and have ruled this world for over eight millennia. When we are done, your enemies will perish and your world will be yours to do with as you please, just my enemies have perished and the world is mine to do with as I please."

"_We_?" rumbled Gorilla Grodd, his tone suspicious. "You first said I, and then you said 'we'. Who is '_we'_?"

"My disciples," the voice said. "You'll meet them soon enough. And as I said before, you lack only refinement and training. In order for you to achieve what I have accomplished, you must become more like me. This will take time and effort, but it can be done."

"And what do you ask in return?" rasped Scarecrow.

"Only the satisfactions of seeing those of like-minded bent achieve their desired ends," said the voice. "Perhaps it is now that I should admit that I have not been completely forthcoming."

There was tension in the Legion then. Several of their heads turned in Luthor's direction, but then a second blue light came on from above that illuminated a circular platform sitting by itself in the middle of this chamber, several dozen feet from where the Hall was.

Mounted on the platform was a sphere held in place by a thick, U-shaped brace. The platform was made of material that differed from the rest of the chamber, -not gleaming metal but some partly translucent material, ribbed with opaque, toothlike projections.

"I believe that this object is familiar to you," the voice said, as the Legion moved forward as one to acquire a closer look at the sphere.

As they got closer, they also noticed a mechanical doll was set reclining against the platform. The doll's joints were articulated for movement, and its skin scorched and stained with oil stains.

The sphere's surface was mottled grayish-black and amber-brown as if bathed in a dozen different acids and scorched in a hundred fires. Random swirling patterns of fine-grain abrasion swept across the entire curving bulk of it, as if it has persevered through clouds of cosmic dust or particles of an origin and type as yet unknown. Random nicks and small dents were scattered across the surface, clearly not part of the design but inflicted by cosmic forces.

Looking more closely, tiny structures could be discerned on the sphere's surface-diminutive tottering mansions, factories, hangers.

Even if the sphere's surface wasn't familiar, the doll was. Several heads turned in Toyman's direction. The harlequin blinked and stepped forward, he tilted his head and the bells on his cap twinkled. "Impossible," the madman muttered. "It was lost in the black hole, and besides, it was much larger."

Luthor closed his eyes and shuddered at the memory of the 'Most Dangerous Game' scheme, and said. "Yes, it once belonged to Toyman. I remember it now."

Brainiac, whose capacity for fear was limited, spoke boldly, "No. You are incorrect."

The eyes of the Legion's members moved from Toyman to the green android. Brainiac spoke into the darkness confidently, "It was Toyman who kept charge of it, but it was I who conceived and constructed this artificial planetoid."

"Yes, yes, it was Brainiac who gave me an artificial planet," said Toyman, "A world complete in itself, one built and stocked with robotic playthings and then placed within the crushing interior of a black hole to act as a trap for the Justice League."

Brainiac expanded on Toyman's introduction and spoke up, "There is a singularity that retains the condition of time-space as it was before the lapse of reality into the Big Bang. The planet would orbit this singularity. From the depths of its event horizon there was, from time to time, folds in the substance of reality, which can be collapsed to form various areas and conditions of matter, time, space, and dimension. Most of these pocket universes are small, no more than five light-years across or five years old, and containing trivial mass-energy. There are methods to create a disturbance within the deeper layers, which will cause the ejection of larger areas of time-space, more mass-energy. No matter how swiftly or slowly your personal time is running, however, the deeper one goes, the longer the journey seems to take from the point of view of outside observers."

Luthor and Gorilla Grodd nodded at the explanation, while others tilted their heads in incomprehension.

"The planetoid absorbed the radiation the black hole produced to in order to maintain its mass. It would even grow larger if exposed to ambient energy," Brainiac asked the surrounding darkness. "How did it come to be here?"

_There was that term again. _thought Luthor. _Black holes seemed to act as passageways between universes, this one and ours._

"One time it just appeared in the spaces between," the voice answered. "It was fairly small when I discovered it, but I deduced its purpose and attempted to restore it as best I could, though the damage it sustained while traveling through the black hole was extensive. You see what I am trying to convey is I have known about you and your world for some time, centuries in fact."

"How can that be true?" Cheetah asked the darkness.

Luthor spoke up "Time is not always a constant. There must be occasional differentials in different universes. In our universe a month passes, while it could be a decade or even a century in this place, or even a million years into the future or the past. Time must be even more meaningless in the Bleed-it might even stand still."

"Very perceptive, Alexander," the voice said. "The artificial planet contained surviving records on its computers, fascinating information that I managed to decode. The files you sent to me only served to fill in the gaps, and of course due to time differentials, your twenty-four hours were several months here."

A pause. Cheetah looked at the Luthor, and Sinsestro walked up to join the rest of the group having returned from making his repairs.

"Our time apart has not been wasted," the voice said ominously. "I promise you."

Luthor then asked the question that had nagged at his thoughts, "Is that how you knew our language? From the records of the artificial planet?"

There was silence; perfect, deep, cold silence, but more and stranger than simply perfect, deep and cold. And for a moment Luthor saw a smile in his mind's eye, the same smile as before, a crescent as large as the moon in his thoughts. The crescent then split into a grin, a vampiric grin of diamond fangs, and then it was gone from his mind.

"Who exactly are you?" Luthor asked, dreading the answer.

"Think of me as the headmaster of a glorious institution of higher learning. Like any school we will work together to assess your strengths and weaknesses to determine how best to meet our common goals," the voice replied. "With that I will now introduce your tutor."

It was then a shadow emerged from the surrounding darkness; it probably had always been there-a shining silver form.

Fully seven feet tall, it resembled a grisly statue made of leather and razored blades. The statue wore a beaded leather wrap around its waist. From its torso sprouted two arms, each with one too many joints, and where its shoulder blades should have huddled swept out terrifying steel wings. Taller than the entity they were attached to, and possessing nearly twice the girth, those expansive wings, sheathed in razors as well, made the metallic beast a twisted angel. The head was the most arresting feature of all: a mask of fantastic gray and red plumes, bone, and black fur. Set deep inside the monstrosity's mouthless, inhuman countenance were two gleaming, crimson eyes, each multifaceted and slowly pulsating with an inner crimson fire. The eyes saw all that was before them, and in their simplicity betrayed a cunning and intelligence that immediately the Legion feared and loathed. There were no visible ears or mouth, though corrugated tubes emerged from the being's shoulders and chest and entered the mask at various points. It made audible breathing sounds, like a winded beast. A gorget of brass circled the thing's wide neck. Jewels gleamed all over the creature, and some glowed and blinked with their own inner light.

For years, the Legion's villainous exploits were the stuff of legend. They clashed with the greatest champions history had ever known. Time and time again they eluded capture to threaten with one more scheme, one more plot, one more device that shook the world's governments to their foundations and send them reeling.

It was now the Legion realized that their dreams of conquest and avarice were pipe dreams: goals never meant to be truly fulfilled. They were as wild children playing at the game of evil.

The Legion was not evil.

Their exploits were never evil.

Up until this point, the Legion had never known evil…

_…for evil now stood before them._

Seeing this horror, many of the Legion trembled and sank to their knees. Realizing their mistake, others prepared to fight and struggle: a cold light formed in the eyes of Bizarro, a flash of golden light emerged from Sinstero's power ring, and Grundy eyed his surroundings for something that he could use.

It was then that the Legions realized they faced not a singular menace but a trinity.

Behind them, a second figure stepped out of the darkness, the most human-looking of anything seen so far on this side. Turning the Legion saw the figure was clearly female. Indeed, one whose beauty was easily equal to that of Wonder Woman's. Like the fabled demigoddess, the female had long black hair. Her skin was completely smooth, unblemished and literally vibrant in its pure radiant milky whiteness. The dark-haired beauty wore a tiara of bright golden alloy, set with luminous droplets of diamonds, topaz, sapphires and flawless black pearls. A solid black visor covered her eyes, but these were not like fashionable sunglasses. The eyepiece appeared to have been bolted to the sides of her face, a metal rivet marred her otherwise perfect temple. Below the visor her nose was small and tip-tilted, her lips generous, her jaw-line chiseled and firm. These features were set carefully in an almond-shaped face that was so even and smooth that it was almost painfully beautiful. Spiky armor covered her curves, sinuously clinging to the woman's alabaster-hued body. The coral was silvery and black, and chased through with designs, images, and arabesques of the most cunning workmanship; both geometric designs as well as marine motifs. The elbow joints were fretted like fish fins; the vambraces had sea-urchin spines and shark's fins running up them. In her left hand she held a baton of a whip that was a length of suckered green tentacle. The whip twitched with its own accord.

The female smiled at the Legion, her chiseled jaw unhinging with a hiss to reveal row upon row of sharp little shark's teeth.

Further back was the third figure, tall and broad-shouldered. A red helmet covered its face with two horns on the sides curling down to the chin, black leg plating and greaves enclosed the figure to the waist, the metal seemingly flowing up its form in numerous subtle twists and curves, accented by protruding short, sharp steel spikes. Each of the spikes seemed stained with old blood. Black, too, was the long rustling cape that flowed around it. In one gauntleted hand it lazily twirled a sword hilt, and a blade extended from either end, serrated, dark, and yet shining.

It was then that Luthor realized that he had made a mistake in opening the portal, a very terrible mistake, but only one thought flashed through his mind and he voiced it in a whisper, "Villains. They're villains."

* * *

And in another universe…

He flew through the air like a dream forgotten. He soared up from the smog of New York city, up through the clouds where everything was touched by the sun and outlined in golden brilliance. That brilliant orb energized the cells of his alien body, feeding him its power. He closed a fist and leaned his head back, exulting in the knowledge that he was invulnerable.

A smile crossed his face, his perfect face. From his eyes came sparks of red energy, the stuff of stars. On his breath was the chill of the void. He extended one arm and flew faster through clouds that seemed to be spun sugar. Glorious.

_Your eyes have been closed too long. Open them. What do you see?_

He looked down, saw the planet that hadn't birthed him, and said "New York."

_Slums, plague, a populace at war with itself._

Krypton's last son gave a burst of speed, producing a sonic boom. Turning away from the sky, he looked down, far below him, and saw the world's continental landmasses laid out under his feet as if just for him.

_Look below,_ said his inner voice. _What do you see?_

"Africa."

_Millions of children starving to death. Not your fault. The plague is everywhere, but nowhere is it worse than there._

He flew, cape fluttering and the view changed. _Look below,_ said the voice again. _What do you see?_

"China"

_A billion people living without freedom. Nothing you can do about it._

Again the world spun as he flew. _Look below._

_The west coast of America. There is the inner city of Los Angeles. Slums. Poverty. They have not abandoned hope, those who live there...Hope has abandoned them._

The antics of the Legion had not been seen for months; perhaps they had given up, disbanded finally. If they hadn't, then the Justice League was always ready for them. After all, they always lost. The villains seemed destined to lose every time. It was their sad pathetic fate. After arriving at the desired location, he slowed and was now circling like an eagle in the middle airs. He looked up into the azure vault of the sky, his telescopic sight piercing the atmosphere to see the satellites wheeling in their orbits, satellites that Hal Jordan had placed there just a few hours ago. With those machines in the sky, the Justice League could spot any trouble brewing from anywhere on this, his adopted planet.

And soon there would be no nuclear weapons in their silos, the Justice League would aid in their disarmament if and when the United Nations made their final decisions from that meeting he had just left.

He prayed now that their actions would release the world from war. The Flash and he could see to it that famine was gone, end it finally, even if it meant retrieving the rich soil from under the frozen poles and coating the Sahara; perhaps even the lad known as El Dorado could help in that regard-teleporting was his talent.

The Dynamic Duo could handle the criminal organizations and the cartels of the world, one at a time. Break their backs so to speak. Diana's magic lasso could make even the most despotic head of state confess his sins, and if all else failed, there was always Hal's ring, which theoretically could dominate the wills of others, though Superman hoped he would never have to ask that of him.

In the back of Superman's mind, doubts surfaced, rising like shoals of fish from a sea chasm. _You have the power to change things-to change everything. Should you?_

_Yes._

The doubt faded, replaced by clarity.

All was right with the world.

Their world. The Justice League's.

It had to be.


	5. Gods and Monsters

Luthor stared wide-eyed; his heart pounded and there was a constriction in his throat. He felt his mouth opening and closing stupidly, no sound escaping. It seemed as though one sense at a time was returning as his mind processed the shock. He could hear the clink of what sounded like chains somewhere in the surrounding darkness as well the slithering of scales against rock as ophidian forms moved in the corner of his eye. And he smelled…

...he smelled what?

Monsters are supposed to smell; perhaps like iodine, or the metallic odor of dried blood from their previous victims, but these three had no smell; almost as if they weren't there at all.

His mind wanted to retreat, to slip away to a safe place. He glanced at Cheetah and Gorilla Grodd, but they were looking in another direction, whispering something among themselves. He turned to look at the most prominent object in the room; the remains of the artificial planetoid; the scientific mind can find a loophole in terror by speculating about the phenomenon involved in traveling through a black hole, feverishly working to reduce it to a set of statistics. The scientist considered the types of conditions that would result in such an appearance.

There was no comfort to be gained from the sight. As he glanced at the sphere encased in that disturbing organic setting, he realized now it resembled a horrific globe of the world after experiencing some hellish transformation-perhaps a future apocalypse in which the atmosphere was torn away, its oceans boiled to leave dark pits, continents stained a dozen colors, and utterly incapable of supporting life.

The three horrors on all sides advanced, coldly committed. The female grinned still, shark's teeth gleaming. The horror consisting of blades and leather put one cloven-hooved foot in front of the other. Two eyes-optics-with a hundred facets throbbing with a deep bloody crimson from inside their metal sockets- never wavered from what was in front of them. The helmeted being with the double-bladed swords flickered in and out of sight; one moment here, the other there.

And then Bizarro attacked. The clone moved forward, clinching his fist at his sides, muttering absurdities and blasphemies on his pale, dead lips. Twin beams of super-cold energy erupted from Bizarro's eyes. The rays flew straight and true at the bladed horror, only to impact on empty floor.

"Me am-" Bizarro began, and with a blur, bladed hands charged with preternatural might slashed across Bizarro's face, chest, and back.

Bizarro grimaced in pain, quickly looking around for his unseen foe. Even to all the sensory input that Bizarro's enhanced senses allowed him to know, there was no sign of it. Bizarro looked down at the liquid that bled from his wounds-not red but dusty, like chalk.

It was then that infinitely sharp blades whirred, cutting more deeply this time, into Bizarro's neck and legs. Bizarro's eyes burned with cold light as he whipped about, still unable to see his enemy.

The silvery blur came again, cutting rapidly into the false Superman's chest, just above the reversed insignia. Lightning-quick Bizarro's hand whipped out, catching a many-bladed forearm as it dove in to attack once again. The horror's entire body blurred into existence, its other arm raised to come down on Bizarro's shoulder.

Bizarro quickly grabbed the raised arm as well, diverting the blow. Immediately the creature's crimson eyes glowed ominously and then disgorged two tight red beams into Bizarro's own sockets.

Two words entered Luthor's mind as he observed the spectacle: _Heat vision?_

Bizarro released his hold on the forearms and went down, moaning in deep agony, and then covered his eyes as red smoke drifted from his sockets. Luthor was astonished. If these things could wound or even kill Bizarro, a being who shared Superman's invulnerability and strength, then what hope did the rest of them have?

"I got him!" rumbled a gravelly voice to Luthor's right. The scientist turned to see Solomon Grundy rip the artificial planetiod from its organic-looking housing; causing it to hemorrhage inky black fluids and trail lengths of tubing. The zombie lifted it onto his muscular shoulders and prepared to bring it down on the leather-clad, many-bladed horror, who stood poised over the fallen Bizarro with seemingly insect-like fascination.

The horror turned to see Grundy with the globe in hand, and tilted its head to one side as if astonished.

Then a fourth being joined the trio.

It was there. It probably had always been there; a cunning shadow among shadows, waiting to drop upon its prey, with all the horrid grace of a spider, diabolically nimble and impossibly silent, upside down, clinging to the wall by means unknowable, defying gravity, defying reason.

It now leapt out, clothed entirely in darkness and it landed on Grundy' back. Legs wrapped around Grundy's waist, arms reached up to grasp his forehead. With a superhuman tenacity, it moved its other hand to Grundy's chin, forcing his mouth open.

Grundy, shocked, dropped the globe, which rolled several times across the silvery floor and stopped with a metallic clang. The undead creature reached around to grasp at the thing on his back. Luthor couldn't see much, but the shadowy menace seemed strong enough to resist Grundy's attempt to dislodge him. It was then that the scientist noticed the creature's hand held a small silver capsule. The creature gestured and the container fell open to sprinkle a white sparkling dust directly into Grundy's open mouth.

With an acrobatic flip the creature nimbly leapt from the zombie's back, and stood plainly in sight. It was tall, clothed entirely in black cloth. The thing's height and musculature suggested the thing was male. Beneath the tight-fitting black shirt, muscles bulged and twisted as if they were sentient creatures in their own right. The figure flexed those muscles, not like a man might, but like an animal dislodging fleas, unthinkingly; and Luthor realized that those muscles moved in ways a human's muscles did not. And its face was...

There was no face.

It was completely smooth.

No eyes, nor hollows for the sockets. No nose, no mouth, no cheekbones, not even a set of jaws. It is as if the front of the thing's skull had grown just as smooth and solidly-fused as the back of it had. And its face was the same color as the rest of it, as black as burnt cinder. Luthor hoped it was a mask or a faceplate, and not the thing's actual visage.

Now there were two of the beings that stood next to the writhing forms of Solomon Grundy and Bizarro. Grundy held his throat, and choked wetly from the substance that the thing had poured down it. The bladed creature moved closer and bent down on one knee as Grundy inhaled with a consumptive wheeze and exhaled with a thick wet rattle. Bizarro still thrashed his fist against the floor, cover his destroyed eyes.

From the sides of its bladed arm the creature removed three pieces of metalwork, each one appeared to have screws protruding from them. Grundy still writhed, choking; he almost appeared to be dying, oddly enough for an undead creature. The bladed thing then, almost delicately like a surgeon at work, held Grundy's head in place. Grundy's white eyes widened and stared into faceted ruby orbs. The thing then clumped one of the metalwork pieces over Grundy's eyes, the piece fitting like a mask without eyeholes.

Grundy thrashed, roared and coughed again. The thing moved with clockwork precision, laying hands on the side of the mask, and with supernatural ability- that touch made the screws tighten of their own accord, drilling into Grundy's preternatural flesh and bone with a swiveling sound. Dark blood ran from the holes that the screws mad-the blood of a dead man.

The thing moved again with a second piece of metalwork, this time over the mouth where Grundy had been poisoned. The gesture was repeated and the screws tightened around his jaw. The coughing was muffled, almost silenced.

The final and third metal-piece was fitted with the same surgical precision over the ears and nose. And again, the metal screwed itself into place. Grundy convulsed, flopping onto his back, pounding rock-hard fists into the sides of the metal flooring, denting them like moist clay. He convulsed and then at last the violence of his death-throes diminished. Grundy's body arched, and with one last, terrible spasm, he was still.

_Solomon Grundy...died on a Saturday._

Not pausing to admire the results of their act, the two figures were off again-twin blurs of motion: one black, the other silver. The two streaks moved further into the chamber, into the crowd of the Legion, seeking, seeking.

Brainiac stepped back out of the path of the blur, and gasped as a metallic whirl was heard. The android reached up to touch the glancing wound on the front of his uniformed chest. There was no blood whatsoever. But beneath the artificial flesh, there was the dull sheen of burnished metal, smooth and featureless.

The Coluan was not the intended target.

Turning away, and still numb from the shock of seeing two seemingly invulnerable entities taken down so easily, Luthor reached down and picked up the capsule that the creature dropped Luthor brought it to his nose to sniff it and the odor was like the ocean, the beach, salt. Common salt. Why had it poisoned Solomon Grundy, a supernatural force of nature that had matched Superman blow for blow?

Luthor had no time to think of that, as he heard the shriek of Cheeta. Turning to the sound, he saw one of the figures sticking a dart into her neck. She swayed back and forth, eyes fluttering as if under the effects of some exotic toxin. Her knees collapsed and she fell to the silvery floor.

"I can't aim!" yelled the voice of Leonard Snart. He turned and saw the parka-suited man frantically weaving around his freeze-pistol at each of the blurs. "They move as fast as the Flash," he said.

_Fast as the Flash, as strong as Superman._ Their attacks could harm even the invulnerable, and kill even the unkillable. What were these things that were more powerful than Earth's mightiest heroes? Worse, they had no weaknesses that Luthor knew of. Luthor couldn't just pull out a geode of Kryptonite and expect these abominations to recoil and fall faint. If anything these creatures knew the Legion's weaknesses as Luthor himself had shared that knowledge with the voice from beyond the portal.

Why had the Legion come here? To this different universe that had different rules? Why hadn't they stayed where everything was defined, neat, orderly? There the League always won. Superman always won. The Legion always lost. Luthor always lost. It was a game. So simple. So easily played. So predictable.

Now the rules were thrown out the window. It was a place of greater dimension; here the triangles were pyramids, the circles were spheres, and squares were cubes. Here the metahumans would kill, Luthor was sure of that.

Another scream, so many screams today. Luthor turned to see that Black Manta was being confronted by the female creature. The suckered length of tentacle that comprised her whip had wrapped around Black Manta's neck, while the dark-visored, armored goddess smiled a shark's grin. In response, the suited man pried his fingers around slippery surface and attempted to wrench it loose to keep from strangling to death. The tentacle fought him-not like a whip but as a living thing-slithering this way and that. With one free hand, Black Manta reached into a belt pocket and retrieved the pairing knife he kept there. Still gasping, he then put the blade to the length of tentacle.

When the incision occurred the suckers blossomed like flowers in response, extending tiny spines that pierced the tough material of Black Manta's wetsuit as well as the flesh beyond it. The tentacle's suckers throbbed, pumping something into Black Manta's veins. The dark-helmed man reached one hand out and the knife dropped from numb fingers. He slumped to his knees. The tentacle retracted and the foe of Aquaman fell on his back, breathing fitfully.

Again, not pausing to admire the victory, the coral-armored woman turned and her whip recoiled. In another blurring of motion she was gone-elsewhere, seeking.

Bizarro still grasped at his ruined eyes, Solomon Grundy was deathly still, Cheeta and Black Manta poisoned, the Riddler was probably still in the Hall mercifully unconscious. Where was Scarecrow?

Luthor looked and saw the masked madman groveling on the floor, muttering to himself. Luthor couldn't make out what he was saying, but he guessed that like many cruel varieties of human monsters, when at last cornered, seldom fight. Instead they reveal the cowardice at the core of their being.

Beyond Scarecrow, Luthor saw that the black-clad thing was engaged in a fisticuff with Gorilla Grodd. Grodd was super-strong, and if any could hold their own in savagery against these monsters, it would be him. But even driven by rage and desperation, the primate was no match for whomever and whatever these creatures were. The thing's stone-hard fists landed an avalanche of punches, and no blocking arm or turned head seemed able to deflect the power of a single blow. The thing's fury was inhuman, strength superhuman. As Grodd's resistance collapsed, the black-clad thing grabbed the primate, lifting him half off the floor, slammed him down, slammed down, slammed down again, bouncing the back of the gorilla's skull off the floor.

With Grodd down came the first kick, delivered with incredibly vicious power, landing on the gorilla's side. There was another kick, another, and the primate tried to curl up defensively. But each furious kick seemed to find a vulnerable spot-ribs, kidneys; the base of his spine-and seemed to be meted out not by a mortal thing but by a pile driver, a mindless mechanical torture device.

Then the kicking stopped.

With one gloved hand clamped on the gorilla's throat, the thing snatched Grodd's considerable bulk off the floor. The thing hoisted Grodd overhead, turned, and threw him into the surrounding darkness.

The black-clad thing paused, turned in the Hall's direction and began walking. The thing turned to a metal pylon and reached behind it. A scream emitted, a shrill that echoed and then was replaced by a gasp.

The dark clad, faceless silhouette pulled Toyman out from behind the pylon where the man had been hiding after the demonstration of the planetoid. Smoothly, the figure pulled something from a concealed belt and stuck it into Toyman's neck. Another dart.

The harlequin's reaction was the same as Cheetah's previously. He fell to the ground, breathing fitfully, and the thing was gone, a black blur against greater blackness.

* * *

Giganta watched the battle unfold, and she had been in shock like the others. Now the shock was wearing off and was soon replaced by white-hot anger.

Giganta existed to smash; it was her only purpose at times. The power was locked up inside her-the power to become a titan at will, a giantess to bestride the earth, to smash like ants those that annoyed her. Today was no different. The Legion fell like dominoes, but Giganta would win.

Unknown to the other members, she was the mightiest of them all. She never told them; but Giganta knew instinctively that there was no upward limit to her growth abilities. She could assume even planetary sizes if she so desired. And likewise unknown, her brain also increased in size, and with it her intelligence. When growing enormous, there was a clarity of mind that surpassed anything else-she comprehended things unknown to the ants under her feet. She felt smarter than Brainaic, than Luthor or Gorilla Grodd during those times.

The most painful thing in the world was shrinking down, losing that poetry of thought and imagination, and having to forget what was it was like to contemplate the workings of quarks and the centers of alien suns.

She closed her eyes against these thoughts. Now she would grow. Now she would win. With the others dead or unconscious, she would come to the forefront.

Concentrating, muscles and bones flowed and swelled, the magic in her tissues calling like a song. She growled under her breath as her perceptions sharpened and everything in view shrunk.

A moment passed, and she doubled in height. It wouldn't be long now.

_Crush them all..._

It was then that a black fist, enormously strong, crashed down on the back of her head like a hammer. Gasping in shock, Giganta went down, shrinking as she did, losing mass.

Giganta, titaness, goddess in miniature, colossus and living mountain, was simply another body on the silver floor of the chamber; helpless before these beings that existed beyond the singularity.

* * *

For Leonard Snart, he climbed to the top of the ramp when it all started. He had his freeze-gun free from its holster and frantically turned its ink-black barrel in the direction of the three blurs, moving it this way and that.

The Flash had always beaten him in this fashion. Always moving too fast. Leonard Snart waited, calculated angles and tried to anticipate where next they would stop.

Then he turned, the blur receded, slowed, and there it stood.

Tall, taller than Solomon Grundy, covered in blades and leathered, winged and ruby-eyed. Its eyes throbbed redder than freshly spilled blood, and his massive, razor-bladed wings stretched out.

Leonard pressed the trigger, and dark energy erupted from the nozzle, spilling out across the distance.

The blast struck and struck royally.

It struck Brainiac.

Leonard blinked at the sight, utterly astonished.

He saw his ally reaching outward and ice covered him from head to toe. The ice even formed over the android's eyes. An intricate tracery of frost covered the diaobes on the android's cranium. Brainiac, the Reducer of Worlds, was frozen solid like a mammoth in permafrost.

Snart had aimed for the creature but struck Brainiac instead.

How?

No answer came to him. What came instead was distortions in the air, like ripples of heat on his face.

Leonard gasped, unable to breathe or think. The heat was too much. His blood ran hot through his veins, humming with a strange fever. His temples throbbed and sweat sprang out along his body. The fact that he wore an arctic parka did not help matters.

His eyes rolled as he fell faint, losing consciousness, falling on his back. Blistering heat fell over him even them, their source being the long-nailed hand of a goddess clad in coral armor and still holding a tentacled whip.

* * *

_Let there be light. _

_A light in darkest places. _

_Make blackest night become brightest day. _

Sinestro sneered as he recalled the oath he had recited so often while still a member of Corps and the slavery the Elders imposed, but it was now a wise course of action.

From his ring sprouted a fiery globe, the sun in miniature-a brilliant yellow hue-one that would illuminate this dark, abyssal place and reveal any foes that hid in its corners.

The light extended outward, and Sinestro saw at last the vast chamber where the Hall had come to rest, and oddly, Sinestro was reminded of the conference room in the Hall of Doom, though here it was writ large. He saw now that the darkness hid forms sitting in seats of gilded pageantry-leering forms, figures that jeered, characters as bizarre as the trio the Legion fought now.

Sinestro could see a brown-haired woman of unearthly beauty in a yellow gown atop a throne of golden crystal; her face concealed by a yellow, beaked mask, perhaps that of some abstraction of a bird. To her left was a tall, dark-haired man, rail-thin and suited in mirror-smooth armor, and each plate was a screaming metal face. Next to him sat another woman, blond this time and no less beautiful or less perfect; beauty marred only by the fact that she was clothed entirely by coiled serpents and held a wickedly-sharp trident of gold. She in turn sat next to a hooded, cloaked form; long-nailed fingers protruded from the cloak's sleeves, each adorned with bejeweled rings.

Onward and onward, Sinestro saw more seats, and more figures-each more bizarre and more horrific. Just as each figure was unique, so to was the seat in which they sat-elevated chairs, classic throne of gold, crystalline abstract structures, shining and cracked marble sofas, theater boxes and sofas of silk. Some of those figures drank from gem-studded goblets of alien design, others appeared to be reading from rolled scrolls that floated in the air in front of them, some pointed at the battle on the stage and whispered to those around them. Others moved styluses over tablets of marble.

Had Sinsetro asked Luthor what his opinion was, the scientist might have compared them to the ranks of fallen angels in _Paradise Lost,_ holding court in fiery Pandemonium or pagan gods sitting in Olympus-if Luthor was Prometheus, then these certainly were the gods that he would steal fire from, and whom would condemn him for that act. Was the 'Benefactor' one of these then?

The figures were metahuman certainly-human seeming, nominally humanoid. Were they human once? What were they now?

No, not human. Never human. Sinestro guessed now what they were; a name from the collected lore of the Green Lantern Corps:_ Empire of Tears, Inversions._

The platform where they sat was revealed to be a stage.

No, not a stage.

An arena.

It was an arena and out there in the darkness was the audience.

He counted the figures: seventeen.

The Legions were outnumbered almost two to one, even if their numbers hadn't been reduced to just two. Things weren't going well. Not well at all.

"Luthor!" Sinestro yelled. "Get us out of here."

Luthor reached into a pocket and retrieved the rectangular device with its array of dials, buttons and switches. _Why hadn't he thought of it before?_ Luthor called back "It's still synchronized with the Hall! If I open the portal now the Hall will leave without us."

The ex-Green Lantern looked back the Legion's ragged headquarters. Its transition through the Bleed had come at a high cost, and even Sinestro with his power ring couldn't make all the necessary repairs in so little time. Even if they could retreat to its interior and shifted away, the Hall might rupture in the return trip and the two of them might be exposed to forces so powerful that not even the ring would able to protect them from.

Time, time, more time was needed.

Sinestro floated upward and blazed with a corona of golden energy, his features taut with effort. "Switch it back then," he yelled

Luthor moved as fast as he could, keying in sequences and turning switches. He suspected that the voice's mental powers were affecting his judgment, keeping his thoughts away from the obvious escape route. Well, it hadn't worked for long. He and Sinestro would leave, and the rest of the Legion would fend for themselves in this hellish place.

Meanwhile Sinestro flared with even energy, more will put into this latest offense effort. It looked as if he would cause his sun to become a supernova, to blast this entire vast chamber to slag and scatter the audience. If it didn't kill them outright, it would at least distract them long enough for the scientist to complete the process and allow for escape.

Concentrating, Luthor didn't see the slash of silver come down. Struck, the time conveyor flew out of his hands. It spun away across the floor, out of reach.

Luthor turned and saw what stood before him.

It was the red-helmeted, black-caped armored form. The blue light from above glinted off innumerable metal spines and angles of plating. In one hand, two blades lazily rotated on a single hilt, lights flashing and reflecting, like a hypnotist aid.

A surge of movement, and the creature grasped him by the front of his purple vest, lifting him from the floor, holding him in the air, still eye to eye. Luthor steeled his jaw. He would not fight, but he would not beg. He had been here before. So much was familiar. The rustle of a cape in the breeze, the steel-grip of the hand around his front lifting him up as he were a child in the hands of an adult. It had happened so many times before that Luthor felt nothing when it occurred by the hands of another.

The being reached up and put away the twin-bladed sword into a sheath strapped on its back. Luthor still stared, not flinching. Without turning, the helmeted figure extended its now-free, other arm out to the center of the chamber. The arm aligned with the glowing form of Sinestro, who still was gathering energy and will to him. Sinestro blazed with golden flame, a galactic center pulling everything to him. Dimly Luthor remembered the surplus of oxygen in this chamber, and recalled what possible effects fire might have.

Slowly, the figure rotated its gauntleted fist so that it was palm upward. It opened its fingers. There was a glimmering light there, as if it held a firefly in the palm of its gauntleted hand. And Luthor saw that the source of the light was a crystalline band around its middle finger: a yellow ring.

It was familiar to Luthor. He saw it nearly every day at meetings since the Legion had been formed. It was the same power ring that Sinestro wore on his finger. The same ring that was now collecting power in the center of the chamber; the ring that would kill everything.

Casually, almost contemptuously, a blast of golden flame several meters across struck outward from the creature's ring, blasting Sinestro and dissipating his false sun into wisps of yellow smoke. Sinestro fell in flames, his uniform blackened. Luthor saw him hit the floor hard, and idly wondered if he was dead.

Luthor swiveled his head from the spectacular conflagration to its orchestrator, the one who held him now.

Luthor looked into the darkness of the faceplate, and saw only more darkness. Not like an empty suit, but darkest night. Another darkness. Another void.

From that darkness came a voice, the figure spoke-in English to Luthor's continued surprise-_"Opener of the way!"_ The voice was a cracked curiosity, light with perverse humor, the undertones dark and demonic, like a raging voice out of an abysmal place of stone, bouncing off iron walls and inescapable prisons, shivering with hatred, each word echoing as hollowly as if it were a dropped stone that had found the impossible bottom of eternity.

It was not the Benefactor's voice, and Luthor didn't know if he should be relieved by that fact or not.

Luthor still stared, not flinching. He felt detached from reality, as if in a fever, but he was not feverish. Indeed, he was cold, though not uncomfortably so: it was cold of a watchful chameleon, pretending to be stone on a stone, it was a cold that invigorated, that focused his entire consciousness, that contracted the gears of the mind and caused one's thoughts to spin without friction. Luthor's heart did not race. Indeed, his pulse rate declined, until it was as ponderously slow as that of a sleeper.

There was silence after that pronouncement, and the Luthor heard something. Another noise.

Music.

It was not the same music he had heard earlier in the void, but it was just as beautiful. The notes danced through the air-_glorious_. Was that the string precession of a violin? A harp? An organ perhaps?

The music lasted several moments, and then the chamber broke into wild applause, an ovation that sent chills up the spine. Sinestro's false sun had gone out, but Luthor could tell that the figures glimpsed before were clapping their hands, a sound like the rippling torrents of a waterfall.

Luthor knew what the battle had been now. This was a fever dream from Rome, from jaded Babylon and old Egypt. It was the ultimate expression of a civilization's hubris and decadence and it had been replicated here and greatly magnified. A gladiator's battle.

Without reacting to the music or the applause, the helmeted figure than rotated the hand from the front to Luthor's collar. He felt his body hit the ground and then Luthor was dragged into the surrounding darkness like a piece of meat.

* * *

He was several thousands miles above the Earth; the curvature of the globe readily apparent from that height, and its surface looked placid and eerily beautiful. Oceans and continents overlaid by a pattern of shifting white clouds. Stars twinkled behind him as he stared down at the azure expanse far below him.

Artfully, pincers the size of oil tankers moved the satellites into position. These particular ones were the property of various organizations, private as well as government-funded.

Hal Jordan did these herculean tasks out of charity, but what his clients were not aware of the special surveillance devices placed on each one. Devices built in the laboratories of the Hall of Justice.

The tiny band of green crystal made Jordan virtually a god. Anything he could imagine, wish for, was his to conjure up.

Once he was a pilot, confined to gravity and atmosphere. With the power ring, the whole of the universe was his to explore. Time could be bent, and Jordan could travel into the past or future just as easily; the circuits of planets his playthings if he so desired; just as these new satellites were.

Yes, a god. Albeit a benevolent one.

Hal Jordan did no question these megalomaniacal thoughts. It did not occur to him how similar his reasoning was to that of his arch-foe Sinestro. Indeed, they were the exact thoughts that went through the villain's mind before he was cast out and exiled to the anti-matter universe of Qward.

A phrase came to Jodan's mind, one from his boyhood readings.

_One ring to rule them all._


	6. Vistas

The sun that Sinestro created had gone out, and only the icy blue radiance from above illuminated the arena, with its remnants of battle. The hooked and sickled apparatuses still hung at the edges of that blue spotlight, occasionally tilting or swiveling as if animated with some languid form of life.

Somewhere in the darkness, a _'PING'_ sound could be heard echoing in this cavernous space.

Now with the masters gone-those mysterious lords and ladies who presided over the life and death struggle-there remained only the servants to arrive and clean the stage of what was left behind.

The Legion was separated, taken away from the arena in a fashion unseen by Luthor, but not by the trembling form of Jonathan Crane.

Scarecrow, kneeling and with vision threatening to cloud over, turned at a whirring sound. He saw hidden compartments in the floor open to reveal the servants.

Tentatively the things moved, like puppets on strings. Instead of feet, the things had another pair of hands at the ends of their legs. And the sound those fingers made on the silvery floor was curiously soft.

An observer would call them robots, servitors, or automations and, in many ways, the approaching forms matched these titles, But in other way they did not. The proportions of their metallic bodies were slim, feminine. Limbs held cracks in the joints where they were articulated for movement. Parts of their limbs were translucent, revealing the play of arteries and conduits from which ran pink fluids. While their heads were nominally humanoid-shaped, their faces were ever-shifting masses of eyes and teeth. From their torsos protruded segmented tendrils, gears, pincers and clawed hands. The teeth in their eye sockets chattered insistently, producing a clicking sound that set one's nerves on edge.

Scarecrow only stared, lips moving behind his mask, but saying nothing. This was too much. Too much. Fear was a constant companion to him, but now it was different. There was no titles for this phobia, no Jungian archetypes to list that would classify these horrors.

He could only watch as they approached, more details becoming clear. Trembles rippled over him, sweat ran down his face under his mask.

Now he could see that a third pair of hands grew from their chests, and these grasped at the air, seeking and eager, as though the robot could not be satisfied.

Brainiac was imprisoned in a crystalline prison of ice, but it proved little or no hindrance to this entourage. One of the things seemed to shift and strain; rearranging parts of its body as if creating the needed tool. A moment later it extended an instrument that resembled a rotary saw blade and pressed it against the ice. An ear-splitting scream rent the air as the saw blade marked its path against the block of ice. The automation guided the blade first in a horizontal path, cutting a straight line along the floor. Extending one of its telescoping organs, the thing drew the line he had scored as high as the top of the frozen Brainiac's head, and then a bit higher, as if allowing for good measure. Then it rotated the blade so it spun in a vertical plane and continued to cut the ice until it was time to turn the blade once again and draw it downward toward the silvery floor.

In due course the thing had carved from the mass of ice, a cube in which the frozen form of Brainiac was embedded like a fly in amber. The thing effortlessly hefted the cube and carried it off into the surrounding darkness.

The unconscious forms of Toyman, Giganta, Riddler, Captain Cold, Black Manta and Cheetah were set upon metal devices, that while of alien design, obviously served the same function as hospital gurneys. Methodically, the things moved the bodies into place and applied organically translucent tubes into their veins, from which came depressingly-hued fluids.

Others were not so fortunate. Bizarro, still blinded, could do little more than struggle with the adamant limbs that pinioned him, and carried him off-limbs that were as strong as his own. Once Bizarro fought back, but with his limbs tightly held he had managed only to get himself earned a stinging blow on the head from a misshapen appendage that he could not see; something that felt not quite like either a hand or a foot.

Sinestro and Solomon Grundy were still unmoving in the center of the chamber, perhaps they were both dead, and were left where they had fallen, and perhaps they were to be removed later.

The crushed and dented remains of the artificial planetoid stood amidst it all, like a desktop globe without its stand, or a squashed fruit fallen from its tree.

Finally one servant approached Crane, its arms extended, one hand reaching out to his face. Crane saw that it was not quite a hand, as those glass filaments beat a steady and luminous pulse. The underside of the fingers and palm resembled the surface of a cathode-ray tube. Data burned there, letters on a background glassy and dark. There was rotten flesh on the upper side, from the tips of the fingernails to the wrist, olive-colored. The rotten flesh appeared to be veined with copper and threads of glass.

He looked into its face. Where there was supposed to be eyes, bristling teeth clicked and chattered in the rim of the sockets, and they resembled animal teeth-crocodilian, with incisors and hooked fangs. The mouth was wide as it had been cut open, carved wide, and more wicked, inhuman teeth filled the thing's maw. From where the tongue should be, three smooth eyes looked out at him from the darkness of the thing's mouth; unblinking of course, lacking the necessary eyelids. Unlike the others, these eyes looked real: human.

From that mouth came breath redolent with both the stench of rotten meat and overheated electrical components. If they were just robots, why did they breathe?

Scarecrow was nearly hysterical with fear and offered no resistance when carried away by the things, having fainted from the sight after only a few seconds. Smoothly segmented tentacles emerged from the thing's torso and with methodical precision lifted Scarecrow onto another of the gurny-like devices where he with pumped with fluids like the others.

* * *

The hallway brought to mind a museum corridor several hundred feet long. At equal intervals enormous pilasters, decorated in a baroque style, supported the ceiling. Each pilaster featured a grotesque face of greenish black and chrome, yards across, its stylized mouth open in a silent roar of rage. In the distant recesses of the arched ceiling, unseen mechanisms clicked and whirred.

Luthor was still in the grip of that strange paralysis. He was calm, collected at the circumstances, but also languid, unwilling to strike back against his captor for the moment. He had a few devices in his costume; lasers in the fingertips of his gloves, acid pellets and powerful explosives in his vest pockets, and propulsion jets in his boots. But on some level, Luthor knew that such tricks would be ineffective against the being dragging him-a being that could effortlessly defeat the mighty Sinestro. This being even seemed to possess its own yellow power ring-a mystery that still baffled him.

Luthor was being dragged, but the floor was smooth, almost slippery, and the journey did not abrade his back. He looked down and saw green, glassy smooth floor like a calm sea upon which reflections played. At the floor's edges, the material caught the light and refracted it like a gemstone.

_Was it glass...or emerald?_

_Emerald city...city of emeralds..._

_...Wizard._

Luthor bitterly smiled, and gave a sardonic snicker. Who were their captors who could use precious gems as mere flooring? Perhaps his analogy had been correct and literal after all. Unfortunately his way of returning home was not easily accomplished as Dorthy's, and the things inhabiting this plane of existence were far lass hospitable than winged simians and cackling witches.

As he was dragged, Luthor saw fractals blossom in intricate, fragile beauty on wall-sized screens of liquid crystal that each had some odd effect on the viewer, such as inducing extreme vertigo, a violent migraine, or an attack of anxiety.

He saw a painting, one of delicate oils, and depicted was a darkened church at night. And the church was on fire-orange flames on black.

He saw more paintings, animated scenes this time. He saw a battlefield and the forms that surged back and forth on the lines of battle were not human. He saw an arrangement of squares shift to form a larger square, and then as he watched it formed a three-dimensional cube to hover before his eyes and the geometry caused him to shudder and he did not know why.

And just as he was dragged beyond view of it, one of the squares departed from the main mass of linked cubes to hover away from the painting and trailed glistening white tentacles as it did.

Luthor passed through a cavernous chamber and it seemed to be a library, where small flaming symbols and dazzling, vibrant words hovered in the space of each shelf like glistening banners. Each volume was enormous in size, and seemed to be plated in ribbed metal. When he heard a dull roar, he turned and saw a river of black water running down the aisles.

Beyond that library, Luthor moved through one chamber where titanic, half-glimpsed machines were at work on monumental structures of such odd design that purpose and function could not even be guessed, and then onto more identical corridors. Luthor idly wondered what kind of energy was being stored and processed: perhaps the nameless energies of the very cosmos itself, perhaps tapping the power of entire stars, galaxies, or black holes.

In one open doorway Luthor saw a room floored with a zigzag-lightning bolt pattern and on the walls were hung curtains of purple velvet. And it seemed there was no ceiling, the curtains simply stretched upward impossibly until they disappeared into the blackness above.

In another chamber he saw ranks of what looked like uniformed laborers, hunched over typewriters or word processors, furiously typing. Segmented cables protruded from their foreheads and networked them together, just like computers that could perform more effectively when linked, allowing for the parallel processing of information. One of them looked up and Luthor saw that its skull was deformed, and that reddish sensors filled its eye sockets, but it had once been a man. Turning from this new aberration, Luthor saw that above them hung a massive book laid upon an altar-like structure at the back of the room. The book was open, and across its pages were prism-like images, flickering across them like projected images. Luthor thought he saw shapes that resembled the double helix of the DNA molecule, binary code or even letters that resembled the Greek alphabet.

After that last wonder, Luthor and his captor came at last to a window, and he saw cloudless sky. He saw no clouds above, but clouds everywhere else, the top of the great frothy masses seemed like snowy meadows or an infinite plain of spun-sugar, beneath a dazzling bassy sun and a sky of pure unclouded blue.

Wisps of nacreous clouds arose like mother-of-pearl smoke. The clouds concealed everything below. And in the middle of this plain of white there was something shimmering in the brilliant sunlight.

It was a spire, thousands of feet high and hundreds of feet in diameter, larger than any tower he had ever seen on Earth.

The tower was shining gold and swirled with red stone. From its base arose a series of suspended, elliptical halos of red crystal each as delicate and perfect as a snowflake with thorn-like windows jutting gently here and there. Those five halos, resembling stupendous disks of flame that spiraled upwards, became smaller as they reached the vertically supported capstone.

And atop the capstone was another sun.

Like all suns, it was a chained hell. A star blazing bright next to the other, larger sun that angled strangely in the sky.

And that line of thought brought back to mind the black hole, a collapsed star crushed beyond the density of neutronium by its own mass. He closed his eyes, and he saw it.

A black sun surrounded by a disk of gas, which it wore like some mockery of a gas giant's rings of ice. A mockery, for its accretion disk was a hazy ring of flame and dust, oscillating with discharges of energy whenever the outer electron shells of atoms were stripped as they plunged toward the surface of the black hole and were torn apart by tidal forces. Nucleonic particles, traveling speeds at near-light and striking the surface obliquely, were sheared in two; half of the particle falling into blackness and the other liberated as pure radiation. The surface itself invisible, seen only as a silhouette against the corona created by these radiation discharges. And the continuous shower of energy from this corona was Doppler-shifted far into blood-red as it struggled to escape the immense gravity well. But it was not a surface; it was an event horizon.

It was that event horizon that brought the artificial planetiod to this place, and it was also the black hole that powered the portal device that had likewise brought him here.

He turned his thoughts to that cosmic event. Luthor had never seen a black hole, though Toyman and Brainiac probably did, and he wondered if the image was a product of imagination, or if his unseen 'confessor' had something to do with it-more of his mental illusions. Even Luthor could find in his heart a feeling of awe for the two villains' capabilities.

Would that same event lead him back? Could he try to trigger such an event using this sun?

As Luthor speculated on that train of thought, he then noticed that the dragging had stopped, and he opened his eyes. He turned his head, and saw only the red and black gauntlet that held his collar. From this view, he could now see the armored form in closer detail.

"Impressive, is it not?" the figure said, his tone light and conversant. "One of the four we have stationed 'round the Citadel. You can't see them from this angle, but they're there."

Luthor gasped at the number. _Four? Did that mean that there were three others? _He turned his head and angled his vision down.

Down through the misty haze of clouds, he could see the vertical side of the structure they were in, like a great green cliff. Down there were distant walkways connecting the spire to this structure. If what his captor said was true, that tower that had so awed Luthor simply a turret on a much, much larger fortress-a bartizan that used a miniature sun as a source of light instead of a torch.

Luthor then asked, dreading the answer. "And if a sun is atop the spire, what is on the roof of this place?" Luthor was eager for answers and perhaps even allegiance. This being, despite its fearsome appearance and raw power had volunteered information, something had Luthor hadn't expected in this hellish place, but sorely needed.

In response, the horned helmet turned back to the corridor and the dragging continued. The figure turned down another green corridor, and then after few moments reached an intersection of more corridors receding to the vanishing point. The armored specter finally reached a filigreed door that opened automatically, and Luthor thought his question was being ignored.

Just as they reached the stairs the figure said without turning, "Why, on the roof, that is six hundred tiers above us, is the throne."

As his body reached the first of the ascending steps composed of emerald glass, Luthor asked himself again.

_What place is this?_

_

* * *

Paradise._

It was only a word, a Platonic ideal. But there was one place on Earth that approximated that idea.

It was an island in the Agaean sea. It was here that gods still walked, and immortal warrior women trained endlessly for the day when evil and injustice would be combated in a world that would despise them.

Pillars graced the facades of buildings as in ancient Greece. A soft pink light suffused the air the way it did in Jerusalem. Boulevards were as wide and as airy as they were in Salt Lake city. Beautiful sculpture and art, as one might find in the streets of Paris or Rome, punctuated the scenery whereever the eye could rest.

It was a place of beaches as clean and white as slates of marble, where white-plumed doves, all singing gloriously, flew up in flocks from aviaries and groves in a thunder rumble of wings.

She stood there before them, where the others were assembled in a seemingly endless line twenty ranks deep. Their faces stark and serious. Women-all of them women, all of them beautiful, all of them resplendent in their white robes.

Stars and stripes adorned her skin-tight costume. From a golden chastity belt hung the loop of a golden lasso. Upon her black silken hair a tiara of gold was set.

She had just concluded her speech involving her progress in the Middle East. It was striking at how successful she had been in her endeavors to placate warring states. She used her lasso more often than usual, but those she had dealt with often found reason when wrapped in its indestructible coils.

She would succeed. Order would be brought to the world of men. They would be tamed. The eyes in the sky would see to that. She even had this, this private army of warrior-women that the world knew nothing of, to bring to bear.

Yes, let the world know the power of the Justice League. Too long had man's animosity been left unchecked, now that the fighting would end.

A hundred eager cheers greeted her ears. She smiled and flung her arms apart, acknowledging the wave of respect, love admiration, and yes, adoration that was coming at her then, a wave that threatened to lift her up and sweep her away on a tide of unspeakable happiness. The cool air frizzed her hair and caressed her arms.

_What kind of goddess am I._

She was a goddess, the favored daughter of the gods, so she could do anything she wanted to anyone, anyone, and now she fantasized about just what she might want to do...and to whom.


	7. Death

It was dark as pitch, the place where Solomon Grundy awoke. Dark, hot and uncomfortable. The air stale, tomblike.

He had died. He distinctly remembered the passing from the sleep-darkness to that other shade of black, the eternal night that had been beyond the power of words to describe. Now he was returned to this lighter darkness, and that was, in many ways, a relief.

He looked around uneasily, trying to get his bearings, but only darkness greeted his gaze. Where were the others? He could see or hear no one. What had happened and how long had he been dead?

Grundy tried to flex his muscles and discovered he could not move-bound tight. Both arms were lashed behind his back, and his feet were manacled with thick cables encircled his limbs and torso. They ranged from three to twelve centimeters in diameter and were attached to a great metal harness. The harness held him upright and his limbs motionless.

Rage grew inside of him. From deep within his great chest, a low, muffled growl built to a mighty defiant bellow. The sound that echoed back seemed to suggest that he was enclosed in a small place, a room with metal walls.

The creature began to thrash about wildly, and the bonds that held him began to creak and groan under the strain, but they held.

Impossibly they held.

His fists clenched, trembling, and he glared about at the dark, as if it had betrayed him. His face was the image of rage, malevolent and fearless and unyielding, the hated heart of will bent towards vengeance.

_Grundy was dead and this was his coffin._

"But death needn't be the end," a voice said suddenly from the darkness, the tone oddly resonant, yet, commanding. It was the same voice that Grundy heard in that hellish arena, the one he heard just before the black-clad faceless creature force-fed him that abominable saline substance and mutilated his face with that horrendous mask of metalwork and screws; a mask that had been removed since then. That line of thought brought Grundy's thoughts to the man responsible for his predicament.

_Luthor._

Solomon Grundy doubled his efforts then. He wanted so desperately to escape, to tear these walls asunder, bring down this loathsome fortress, and then wrap his hands around his treacherous leader's neck just before he destroyed those hellish creatures that resided here.

This was not death, but confinement. Much worse, it was solitary confinement. He desperately hoped it was only temporary.

The more he thought of Luthor's treachery, the angrier he became. He heard the sound of metal flexing, bending a half millimeter, but the bonds held and even the supernatural strength of undeath had its limits here.

"No...No...you mustn't do that," the voice said gently and sternly. "Anger at any one person or thing should be redirected a new person or thing, and be used to achieve control or dominance, or any goal one seeks."

Grundy stopped raging. His eyes moved from one side to the other. The voice, with its calm sincerity, had an immediate impact. Disobedience seemed an impossible response to that reasoned tone.

"Anger should not be an emotion that gradually arises again at each new justifiable cause, but should be held in the heart and nurtured, under control but sustained, so that the full power of it can be instantly tapped as necessary, whether or not there has been provocation."

The voice was insistent,"Cyrus Gold, listen to me, and heed well my words."

Solomon Grundy hissed and his eyes rolled in their sockets back and forth. That name...

"Listen to me," the voice repeated. "Cyrus, everything will pass. That which is dead can live again. This is the last day."

Cyrus Gold was dead.

He was Cyrus Gold.

He was dead.

No. He wasn't dead.

Grundy wasn't dead. He knew this, and yet the voice wanted him to think that. He remembered crime, blood on his hands, the metallic taste of a bitten coin on his teeth. He remembered old enemies, the thrill of crimes committed and riches taken from his merchant dealings.

But there were holes in his memory, he could not recall Gold's specific crimes.

But he remembered dying.

There were dark paths before him of broken stone and bleached bone, steps leading down into greater darkness where fires awaited him, and then he remembered living again, first hearing the sounds of slow water and serpentine life and then crawling from dark waters, rising from where he had sunk, finally raising himself above the water level where he had fallen on his face in the slime, slithering as a serpent.

And then he had gotten to his feet, now inhabiting another superhuman form, a form far, far more marvelous than the first with a skeleton of wood and clothed in pale, decaying flesh that was invulnerable and impossibly strong and undying. He went out into a world unprepared for one such as he; a ravaged humanlike thing emerging silently from shadow.

In those early days, that thing that was once Cyrus Gold had sought wealth, for he remembered its value to those mortal fools who cared more for money than anything, rarely realizing that the price paid in the end was greater than the gain. Yes, they enjoyed the day and night and not lived to see the dawn.

The Legion welcomed him.

The voice broke him out of his reprise. "Once it was the monolith that brought you back," the voice said and then paused. "And my power dwarfs that of the monolith."

_Madness. The Monolith of Evil once destroyed the sun. Nothing could exceed its power._

"Nothing?"

Solomon Grundy shuddered. He knew he hadn't said it out loud. He was still, but his limbs still twitched nervously, and he only half-aware of straining against his bonds, their edges scouring the numb skin of his unliving flesh.

"One pinprick and this will be over, you'll be back and you will never fall into that void again." the voice replied with all the reassurance and affection that a caring parent gives to a afflicted child. The grave has no power to my favored. Those which serve me."

Grundy found his rage then and roared. "I won't serve you!"

"Words spoken often," the voice replied calmly and insistently.

Solomon Grundy felt something then. It was indeed a pinprick; an hypodermic injection- though one sharp enough to pierce even his resilient flesh. Grundy wondered if the needle was made of the same alloy as his bonds.

He twitched.

Fluid flowed out of the syringe, into his veins, co-mingling with the languid, conagulated blood in them.

The unseen syringe withdrew from his arm.

And then there was pain.

Grundy stiffened, monstrous hands curled into tight fists, his teeth clenched, and his jaw muscles bulged. Between those clenched teeth, lips peeled back in a grimace of pain, he let out a strange, low groan. The arm into which he had been injected felt as though it was on fire.

_"Luthor!"_ The words hurt his throat as though they were a language other than his own. He then turned his attention to the voice. "What...what have you done?"

"Improved upon the monolith's work," the Benefactor's voice said. "I told you that my power exceeds that of your rock of strength. Believe me, for I can tell no lies. Your conquering leader should have realized that."

He shivered more violently as the fiery fluid bled into his chest, and then through his body, scorching into his legs and pelvis, stomach and head, and delving into his brain.

His eyes snapped open and drew in a huge, shuddering breath.

Solomon Grundy stretched and heard and felt his wooden joints crackle as he loosened up. He felt stronger than he ever had before.

And starving for something fresh, red, and bloody.

_Such hunger_, he thought. In all the years, he had been in his unique state of existence, Solomon Grundy had never felt hunger, or thirst, or pain. He was dead, and powerful and monstrously invulnerable. Now he felt all those things magnified, but now he was hungry. He worked his mouth and swallowed continuously, involuntarily, hard, difficult swallows that caused him pain.

Rapid hunger.

Painful. Tearing at him.

* * *

_Hunger..._

The scarlet-clad man felt it now. He would have to eat again soon, but he ignored it and continued his endless marathon run. What he felt was nothing compared to those in need, those that needed the aid only he could provide.

Through war, famine, disease, and the corruption of man, most of the south and central African states had been reduced to wastelands of anarchy. Those who ruled, ruled by the power of the gun, and those with the guns controlled what food was grown or shipped in from other countries willing to share. Most starving people died where they fell, and within moments their twisted and shrunken bodies were stripped of what little they possessed. For many no medicine was available for the sick, no place for them to seek aid, and no way for any help to travel to them.

The world was a fiery blur to him now. The speed force was in his veins, feeding him power to dampen the gravitic fields around him whenever he used his great speed, allowing to move without ripping up everything around with the frictional energy of his body.

On his shoulders he carried the stacks of precious grain. The stockpiles of grain in the United States were massive, and none could resist this new active Justice League's demands. In time, the Flash and Superman and El Dorado would transport the precious topsoil from under the poles to blanket the world's deserts and the world would that much closer to perfection; utopia.

The League's orders were clear. The world's masses would be fed until those impoverished nations gained self-sufficiency. He felt none of the usual pain in his legs even running almost continuously for many days.

Strangely, though, he felt energized, as if the dynamism siphoned off his body was draining back into a vast energy supply somewhere else, from which it had come. He felt less and less connected to his body.

His powers seemed to be increasing, getting stronger. Instead of feeling fatigued, he felt energized. There were no doubts in his mind, only a relaxing dreamlike blur of purpose fulfilled.


	8. In extremis

Leonard Snart awoke to not just total blackness: darker.

Not just odorless, antiseptic, clean: much purer than any words.

Awakening to darkness, he became aware of sounds next.

Clickings . . .

Whirrings...

The sound of tapes spooling and unspooling. The ticking of circuits opening and closing. All the noises of a complex and busy machine doing whatever it was its makers had created it to do. As he thought of the word _machines_, the first concrete concept which had occurred to him in this slow awakening, other solid thoughts and questions arose in his mind.

Where was he? His mind danced over that question. His facial features seemed numb and twisted. He tried to open his eyes and failed on the first attempt. Why couldn't he open his eyes? What covered them?

He felt no pain, no aches. Simply a dull pressure akin to a Novocaine-numbed tooth, centered upon his face where his eyes were. A dreadful apprehension began to creep over him.

He tried to blink against the darkness, but he couldn't feel his eyelids, only more pressure. He raised a hand to examine his face and his fingers touched simply scabbed-over flesh. Rough.

In that instant the nightmare was confirmed, the unreal made real, the impossible suddenly incarnate. His eyes were gone, torn away, the eye sockets blackened, as though by cauterizing, yet he still felt nothing other than a dull pressure.

Leonard shuddered, the urge to scream on his trembling lips.

He was blind. He would never see another thing again.

How did this happen? The last thing he remembered was scorching heat. And now?

_Cold..._

...Cold?

Air flowed over him, enveloping him, sheathing him in rivulets that felt like they cracked and splintered with his every movement. It was cool and chilling, and he remembered where he was, how he had come to it. He had frozen Brainiac while targeting the bladed horror and now he was cold and blind. Was he being punished in the same fashion?

He could feel his blood surging through the tight walls of his veins and arteries; it was icy, nearly frozen. He was in a chamber as smooth as glass.

He had no eyes, but he felt...cold. The parka was gone, in addition to his undergarments. So he was naked then and without eyes, utterly helpless. Where was his freeze-pistol? What was the rest of the Legionnaires? Where was Luthor, the one who brought him to this chilled hell?

The cold air burned into his lungs. His chest had begun to ache strangely, and spasms of sharper pain more frequently lashed through his entire torso with a fierceness that forced him to stop and grit his needle teeth into his lips, drawing blood. It was some time before he understood that his tender lung tissues were being frozen by the winter air. He shivered, tried to relax, resisting the impulse to fight the trembling. He knew that if he stiffened up he would use more energy, only get colder, so he breathed deeply, tried to control his physical reaction to his surroundings. The soft, wet internal flesh would harden and crack under this sort of punishment. He would have to take smaller breaths, slower breaths, so that they had more of a chance to warm on their way to his lungs.

He felt cold and something...touching him. No. Not touching him, but close by. He had a bizarre but unshakable feeling that something hideous and merciless was near, something infinitely more powerful and strange than anyone in recorded history has ever seen, dreamed or imagined.

Something rustled behind him. He turned his head, but could not see.

What was this? It was...

And he heard music. First the music pealed forth in the soft ringing of a hundred tiny wind chimes all agitated at once. And then it darkened to become tootling and piping. It was comprised of bassy horns. Trumpets blaring. Cymbals clashing.

Crashing.

Building toward a crescendo.

And then all at once, the music ceased and a voice spoke "Be at peace, Leonard Snart. The cold is only a precautionary measure against infection."

It was the voice, the unseen benefactor and would-be ally of Lex Luthor. What did it want? Dissect him and examine his brains and nervous systems?

"My eyes...what have you done to my eyes?" Leonard Snart futility cried out into the black void which was now his universe, limited only to four senses instead of five.

Leonard heard it then, patient as a parent explaining to a child: "They are being replaced. Your old optics were insufficient for the purposes of effective targeting," replied the voice of Luthor's once-ally.

Leonard Snart shivered, the skin on his back crawled. Not just because the thing seemed to be standing before him. The voice was mockingly parental, which unnerved him far more than a bestial growl could ever have been. And it seemed as though the voice were standing over him, regarding him with cold, sadistic pleasure, gloating at the sight of his maimed face.

He couldn't think about that now. The cold was painful, as if some small animal with teeth of ice were chewing on his insides and nibbling on his bones. But that would pass, and quickly. Leonard knew the mechanics of cold, having spent years utilizing it.

In a few more minutes he would grow numb again, and this time the numbness would last. The blood had already begun to drain inward, away from his freezing skin, in a desperate effort to protect his vital organs. The blood supply to his brain would be reduced as well, to a minimal maintenance level, and he would become drowsy and go to sleep and never wake up. It would not be so terrible.

For many years Leonard Snart had called himself cold. And now it seemed he would die in his proper element. Fitting.

His thoughts drifted. He was determined that should he die here, his last thoughts would be upon more pleasant things. As exhausted sleep crept upon Snart, he bent his mind to those things he most valued: power, wealth, comfort. More deeply, he longed to recall the beauty of a snowy night in starlight, or the cold glint of the Moon above the desert, the lonely notes of nightingales lost in frozen forests.

But even here, it seemed fate would thwart him. He could see again in dreams, but in his dreams, he saw the ghostly bluish-white plains leading off in all directions, twilight, and perpetual overcast, and the opening of polar pathways, portals in likeness to the one that brought Legion here, opening. He saw a vast black monolith arising from frigid wastes to scrape against the vault of the darkened sky—a mountain, unimaginably large, incomprehensibly high and luminous streaks, lightning perhaps, could be seen dancing amongst its edges, casting its shadow across a world void of warmth.

He saw the portal open, and then the sun came to earth; blazing-rays of sunlight bleeding toward endless frozen plains of pristine white.

Fiery.

He was awoken by pain.

Fiery pain.

In his left arm, Snart could feel the bones being snapped and rearranged by unseen hands with the strength of steel. The pain was excruciating, and he could also feel his flesh being cut and icy metal being inserted. He felt his hand bend into unnatural contortions, and he was powerless to stop it.

"You suffer so." the voice was enunciated, each word made important. "Because you are imperfect. You've always been imperfect, Leonard. Held in bond by seething desires; wealth, women, and wrath. I removed your narrowed eyes that did not see the wonders beyond."

The hand was clamped around metal now like a claw. Snart somehow knew that his hand would be forever contorted into that position. But what was being inserted, installed, placed within the living flesh of his arm? It felt heavy, a terrible weight.

He couldn't see. There was only darkness, and then gravity was suspended. There was no weight to be drawn from gravity. Nothing but cold that could eat through to the soul, cocooning it in ice. No control, no volition, turning against will. The metal thing embedded in his arm pulled him upwards. His heart pounded frantically, making the veins in his neck and wrist pulse. Blood seemed replaced with fire, yet he felt cold all over, layered with ice.

And there was something around his neck. Cold and wet, like a moist, icy tendril, the appendage of some undersea denizen. Paralysis from shock came later-a calming release from feeling.

"But rejoice, for all things are made new through my hand," the voice said, tone raising in dark triumph. "As it shall be through yours."

Leonard could only babble hysterically. This was too much. Finally he began to scream; releasing the anguish, the pain, and the terror.

And then there was voices in his head now, not just his own.

Something was creeping along the dark corridors of his mind with cold fingers that probed and searched, fingers that spoke to him and laughed with him.

The coldness was all-encompassing as it suddenly lunged and captured him in its icy grip, and he was pleased for it, the shock and fear turning to dark rapture like the swift effects of an anesthetic.

He was not alone anymore. Indeed, would never be alone again. The voice was with him, ushering him through his previous fear and telling him what must be done. It was a moment of the deepest truth, blinding knowledge and deepest joy.

Exultant he was reborn.


	9. Aberration

Bizarro opened his eyes. The world was black around him.

Bizarro closed his eyes and waited.

He blinked and the last of the fine dust that composed most of his tissues fluttered about his newly restored eyes. He was relieved that his eyesight had returned. Few things could harm the doppleganger, and what little could was often swiftly healed-invulnerability, regeneration, rejuvenation, like his hated counterpart, Bizarro possessed all these abilities and more.

After a time he opened his eyes again. Bizarro seemed to be in some kind of ovoid room. All surfaces were comprised of a reflective, vaguely golden substance. the reflections they presented were crisp and sharp and clear in every detail, too clear-the face of a monster-angular features, hollowed-cheeks, pale as chalk, with a blank, dead stare.

Bizarro turned from the right reflective wall. He didn't want to see it.

Turning away, he thought at first the wall on the right seemed painted black. Then he realized that it was made of glass, and whatever was behind it was in darkness. Pipes ran across every surface, while much of the floor was a mix of plates and grills-also reflective-with gaps between them hinting at further levels below. A dim yellow glow light shone down from the domed ceiling providing enough illumination for him to see that he was lying in the center of a circular table.

He attempted to climb from the table, but found that he could not. And, with a frown, he bent his head to see thick brackets holding both wrists to the metal slab, restraining him.

He tensed, feeling the titanic power in his arms, chest, legs, and back; limitless strength that could crush steel like clay. He clenched his hands, slowly flexing it into a massive squared fist of incalculable power, power obvious even with the simple contraction, inhuman strength flowing through his pale flesh. His thin lips curled in a snarl as the muscles in his arms flexed and he placed his might against the restraints, and still they held.

It was impossible. Bizarro could move planets from their orbits with his hands, and yet he could not break these bonds. What metal were they comprised of?

After a while a light began to shine in the area behind the glass. It came up slowly, giving his eyes time to adjust. Bizarro saw four or five figures-shadow amongst greater shadow, standing on the other side of the glass. The twisted creature heard the low susurrus of their voices as they murmured among themselves. The noise held a vague tone of concern.

Bizarro moaned softly, a low sound. He didn't understand how he had come to be here. At times, Bizarro didn't understand many things. As a flawed doppleganger, he was at times little more than a brute blindly following orders of those more intelligent than he. Though there were he was possessed of moments of brilliance, he always followed his creator, Luthor. Now where was Luthor? Had his creator abandoned him again?

"Bizarro, do not panic," a voice said.

Bizarro looked around, swiveling his head in confusion. The words spiraled along the walls, ceiling and floor in a cascade of whispery echoes. _That voice. It was the same as before._

The voice ignored his struggles and continued, "All your life you have defined yourself as being the opposite of him. A dark reflection of the mightiest being of your world, and thus you attempt perfection in your own counterfeited aspect. Not the same, no, but no less because you mirror the best. Opposite, but no less. How long do you mean to be content?" the voice said.

Bizarro gritted his teeth, yellow molars against thin, cracked lips. The bonds would not break.

"I understand perfectly. I am a monster in my own way as well, and we monsters never asked to be born with metal bolts in our necks, scaly wings, the thirst for blood, or with hideous, deformed faces from which beautiful girls shriek in terror."

"We monsters are not evil; we try simply to survive in an uncaring world. We are so, so unlovely, persecuted but not conquered-we are never conquered. We are heroic in our suffering." The voice paused, and then said, "We endure."

A warbling sound was heard from above, as well as the hum of hydraulics. A second white light radiated downward from directly above like an annunciation, brighter than the first. Bizarro looked up, squinting into the blinding brightness and saw the source of the light. It was a baroque ray-pistol, gunmetal gray and as a large as a tractor. Metal struts along its length held the device in place and focused it on the table where Bizarro was restrained. It was a weapon that Bizarro recognized, as it was his own enlargement ray, the very same one he constructed during the Giants of Doom affair, and now that same ray that had given Bizarro and three others tremendous size and mass was being turned upon him.

"Unfortunately, immunity to blue kryptonite can only come through repeated exposure."

_Kryptonite,_ Bizarro knew that word, that cursed variety of mineral that was the only thing that was capable of causing the creature pain. His often-inverted thought processes turned to the mystery of how the being that imprisoned him had acquired such a substance-fragments from a dead world from which Bizarro's progenitor had been born.

He deduced that the gun's radium supply had been replaced by a sample of blue kryptonite-turning it into a energy projector. He wouldn't let this happen. The blue-variety was deadly to him just its green counterpart was to his hated counterpart.

From its barrel came a wave of light. The intensity of the light grew, becoming bluish in color, a red tinge tainting the hue as it became more powerful. The blue glow began to ball up, rolling subtly over him, deeper and deeper in color, until the whole room was flooded with the blinding blue glare, shadows dispersed completely because of the reflections. The light was all-encompassing, inescapable, and unstoppable.

Dimly Bizaro felt his own crystalline tissues responding to the light. He felt his flesh bulge, blister, pulse. With preternatural hearing, Bizarro heard the sound of his own bones grinding crunching, splintering as they were broken down and changed. His nostrils caught the stench of his own flesh melting and re-solidifying with a sickening, wet sound beneath the blue ray. He felt portions of his face bulge in some places and not others, rippling and pulsing.

His body was transforming under that blue beam either at random or to some purpose that he could not grasp, and there was no way of knowing when it would finally stop. It might never stop. It was as if the wave of kryptonite were a chisel, and he-Bizarro-were a marble block being carved into an image.

_No, not marble. More like limestone. Chalk._

For a moment he was in such horrendous agony that he could not move or cry out or breathe. All thought, all memory was scoured away from the poor creature's mind, replaced by throbbing, unadulterated sensation. When at last breath could be drawn, he screamed once before all faded in that icy blue haze that fell upon his vision and pressed him unerringly toward unconsciousness still filled with horrible pain.


	10. Depths

In Black Manta's tortured dreams he stood beneath a dark heaven on piers of wood and stone that jutted out into black elemental waters like lances plunged at the heart of a primordial ocean. The waters were alive with mysterious tides, lyrical noises and the smell of uncontaminated creation-a sickly-sweet scent of biological possibility, as well as the primordial stench of death. The liquid foamed and roared, smashing against the rocks. This was the edge of the Abyss, and the ebb and flow of blood through his veins and arteries was in perfect sympathy with the rhythm of the tides.

There was another deeper sound like that a brazen trumpet blowing a long blast and the tides began to recede, as if drawn back by the gravity of something immense and sinister filling the skies. The seabed was opened up for him to view the decayed reefs, the timbers of shipwrecks and revealing more dead things lying in the ooze. Fish putrefied, beaches strewn with bloated silver bodies of fish as far as he could see, beaches littered with everything in the sea heaved up onto the shore; it was an inexplicable, abyssal disgorgement. Many of them were clearly human corpses as well as the monsters of the deep-dragonic shapes, serpent forms, thousands of feet long and which were now food for a multitude of vermin.

The oceans thundered and hissed, apocalyptic, expanding up impossibly and shedding back to expose the naked planet beneath in all its cyclopean gaps and heights, the enormous extent of sunken continents. He saw tapering chimneys of hardened mineral deposits, open vents spewing thick clouds of superheated mineralized water into the air. Clusters of albino clams and mussels and crustaceans sprawled in worship around these sources of nourishment.

The water continued to recede, slowly revealing something larger than the others. It towered over Black Manta like a vertical continent, and as the ocean fell away from it in torrents, it revealed smooth surfaces that glittered and writhed.

The world was bathed with light, and he saw it plain, rising toward dark heavens and the stars that lay beyond them.

It was as though his mind refused to fully comprehend this thing, substituting other images-flesh growing on a twisted structure of rusted metal, maggots in the eye sockets of dead animal-and while, those images were horrible enough, another part of his mind shrunk from the knowledge that he was being confronted by something more hideous and ancient than reason alone could acknowledge.

Plunging back to darkness, and then to gray reality, awake, sweating, whimpering. He reached towards his face, finding that his helmet had been removed, but not his armor.

His eyes cleared and he saw at last where he had been sleeping.

The walls of the chamber he was in were crusts of living coral, which had been sculpted with incredible glyphs consisting for the most part of conventionalized aquatic symbols such as fishes, eels, octopi, crustaceans, mollusks, storms, whales, strange leviathans and the like. But the carvings had a rough, crude look to them, and he realized that the coral out of which the walls were craved was still living, rough and knobbed, so that, with time, little bits of the carvings were blotted out and grown over.

All was quiet. Except for a strange, heavy noise like sandpaper on sandpaper. He looked around, trying to locate the source of the noise, wondering whether it was hostile or friendly. His heart beat faster when he realized the sound was coming from someplace close. Then Black Manta realized it was the sound of his own breath that he had begun to fear. It came raggedly, heavily into his lungs, burning them.

His thoughts were disjointed. He realized that. He needed to find the others and arrange to escape this nightmare that Luthor had inadvertently brought the Legion into. Solidarity. Someone had removed his helmet. Still, he felt naked without it. He needed security now.

He glanced down and audibly gasped.

The floor of the chamber was covered with an unimaginable horde of treasure-mounds of gold coins, tall stacks of bars, ingots and lumps the size of a man's head. Spilling out over the gold like a rainbow-hued river of blue, red and green, was a cascade of bright jewels, mingled with swords with jeweled hilts.

Examining further revealed that his various knives and devices had been removed from his bell as well. Idly he reached down to touch a dagger whose blade was crusted with looked like serrated diamond.

"So much wealth..." he trailed off.

""Hmph," there was a noise behind him, a small laugh of satisfaction. The laugh rang like silver chimes, piercing the innermost membranes of his ears. Black Manta turned his head around, gripping the dagger.

It was she, the woman from the first chamber. She was here, still dressed in that bizarre armor and standing proud. She was still breathtaking, yet frightening, imposing. He could only call her beautiful and perfect if not that dark visor that hid her eyes, the bolts riveting it to the sides of her head.

Was it she who brought him here? To what purpose? Unconsciously, Black Manta's hand moved towards his neck and the puncture wounds there caused by her tentacle whip. With his other hand he held the dagger to his side.

"Tis' of no worth to me. All the treasure of all the ships that have ever sunk is gathered here, and if I should want more, I will sink some more ships and drown more sailors." If a voice could sound like the dazzle of sunlight on the waters, on all the waters of the world, refracting and multiplying a thousand-fold, hers did. "Your only desire was to be master of the sea, but you did not understand it."

"Who are you?" he asked. In her presence he felt hollow and unfulfilled. His skin grew clammy, and his throat was so dry that it ached. She had beaten him before, but he would fight her again if necessary.

She smiled in response, and he shuddered at the revealed serrated molars in those otherwise perfect features. "I am the sea, so you will have to understand me."

She reached out with a pale hand, and his eyes shot towards it. The fingers had five delicate digits with perfect crystalline fingernails, each with its exactly proportioned, crescent-shaped lunula and the fourteen finest phalanges; none were a millimeter more or less than ideal length. Across the gracefully arched back of the hand were the five most flawlessly formed metacarpals one could ever hope to see. All in all, it was a perfect hand, the hand of a goddess-a dark Venus who reigned and arose from the cool and dark depths of many waters, and even over all the highest kings and kingdoms of this earth.

The perfect hand now caressed the side of his jaw-a lover's caress. But where her fingers touched Black Manta's skin there a stinging pain arose.

Black Manta was familiar with all the sea's creatures, and he had experienced this same sensation several times before. Once one has felt the jellyfish's sting, one never forgets and that was exactly what the female's touch felt like.

First it felt as if he'd been stung by a hundred needles, and then sudden paralysis ensued of his entire body followed by complete numbness.

In the grip of a paralysis so complete that he could not even blink, he stared into the she-demon's shark maw and saw her moon-white, prickled tongue. He saw his own paling face reflected in the darkness of her visor. She pulled her hand away and stepped back. Unsupported, Black Manta dropped limply to the mound of treasure that covered the floor. Though he commanded himself, he could not move a single finger.

She then pulled his face up to hers and kissed him with lips that tasted of salt and blood and iodine. Helpless, Black Manta found his consciousness drifting, attempting to return to that world of dreams that he had just left...

In dreams he found himself walking again on an unearthly shore. The waters were almost velvety, the waves large enough to tempt a surfer, but curling and breaking more slowly than those on any earthly shore he had ever set across.

He watched it for fully a minute, and then, seduced by its gentle fluctuations and light-footed, he walked down to the sea.

He started down the beach in the wake of the fleeing ocean, beginning to run across the course wet sands as the sun rose up above. The sand sucked at his bare feet and various stranded creatures snapped at him in their death agonies as he sloshed past them.

The ocean was choppy, thick and dark, its turbulent waters scummy, and here and there he saw bodies in the surf, turning their stricken faces his way as if to warn him against entering. He made his way slowly down to the beach, picking a path through an appalling assortment of rotting, ravaged marine corpses to the water's edge.

Black Manta felt an urge to return to the sea, back to the watery womb from which he had been born. There would be no more hatred, no more seething desire, no more struggle. He wanted this. And it wanted him; it was going to seize him, have him; it was water with a will, a thinking sea with a malevolent consciousness gleaming darkly in its depths.

Without warning a thirty-foot wave loomed over the beach, and towered over him. He raised a hand in defense and turned back. It broke and he was swept away. He tried to swim. The flesh on his arms and hands bubbled and blistered and began to peel off, revealing glints of ice-white bone. The seawater was acid. Helplessly his head went under.

He gasped as he broke the ocean's surface, but the corrosive sea had already eaten away his lips, and he felt his tongue turned to rancid mush and gums receding from his teeth, and in the salty caustic brine that he had swallowed. Even the spray-filled air was corrosive, eating away his lungs in seconds, so when he tried to breathe he could not.

Black Manta went down, flailing at the waves with arms and hands that were only bone.

Underneath, the acidic sea continued to dissolve everything-bones, fingernails, hair, internal organs, fat, muscle, and all other forms of tissue became as liquid, undifferentiated from the water around him. Yet even dissolved, he was still conscious and still alive-a wraithlike consciousness that could not be destroyed. Drawn inexorably into an undertow, sucked into everlasting darkness, dissolution, and oblivion.

* * *

With an expulsion of air and water, the majestic behemoth broke the surface, its sickle-shaped dorsal fin cut the waves, the great tail to slap the sea in defiance before slipping back into the froth.

At a hundred and twenty tons, the blue whale was the largest living creature ever to have existed on the planet. Tons of blood surged through its body, driven by a heart the size of a small car.

And yet even the behemoth served its monarch.

Green-gloved hands grasped the dorsal fins. Dressed in orange scale and green leather, he was tall and broad-shouldered, blonde hair cut short, blue eyes sparkling with exultation-an Adonis. His body was lean and muscular from a lifetime of swimming.

He felt almost euphoric, intoxicated, overcome by pleasures beyond him yet somehow in him. Laughter poured from him. In this moment all things were clear now. The doubts were gone, and the future was an unrolled scroll before him.

They had discussed it-a compromise. With the proper management, the vast resources of the sea could be put to use for those above the water as well as those below it. In time, the floating cities would be built-sustaining habitats that would become a way to deal with the overpopulated landmasses, each a utopia and an Atlantis reborn. After all, over two thirds of the earth was covered in ocean.

He leapt from whale's back, arms extended to plunge beneath the waves and again he was beneath the ocean, swimming downward, deeper and deeper from the silvery light of the sea's calm surface, into the depths where it was dark, the blackness waiting for him, welcoming him.

He was a king and the boundaries of his kingdom were vast.

Subduction creates trenches, the deepest locations on the planet. In these trenches there are places man has not seen, and might never see.

And deep within these trenches, _they _dwelled. Once _they_ were human, now no longer. _They_ were the mermaids and the mermen, the nereids and the sirens of legend. Once their civilization touched all corners of the world, now only the sea holds them. Far from the light, _they _dwell and dance, liaise, discuss, sing, construct elaborate temples and palaces on sunken continents and sub-abyssal plains-great mosaics of living coral cubic miles in volume. Mortals seldom visit their dwellings, hidden so far down in the depths that the rays of the sun cannot hope to penetrate.

Arthur dove down deeper, and faster. Despite the cool depths, he felt hot, ablaze with possibilities. It was a glorious feeling. Certain small steps still needed to be taken; little pieces of the design still had to fall into place.

He was a king, and it was time that his people knew that their days of watching helplessly from the waves was over.


	11. Erudition

Brainiac hung in a great chamber, one where pentagonal walls constructed from solid emerald rose up from the edges of the floor only to slope away at angles. Above they buckled back and rose in another set of pentagons to meet a ceiling of similar design; an immense dodecahedron that could not possibly support itself. The impression was that, in any moment, this vast chamber could fold in upon itself and bury everything under tons of rubble.

Every inch of the room was full of machines; humming, gurgling, sputtering devices through which black, bile-like fluid flowed through invisible pipes that could not be seen and dynamos humming with an overwhelming purpose. The only sounds were a mechanical clicking, as of a thousand typewriter keys; a whirling and fluttering, similar to the shuffle of programming cards; the hiss and sputter of controlled electrical energies, and the distant, subterranean thrummings and vibrations of giant engines.

Brainiac was completely naked, his green body stretched out in tension upon some variety of cross-frame, held in place by no visible means, and though his eyes were closed, his face was screwed up in a soundless scream of agony as cosmic truths flooded his memory banks. Hundreds of pinpoint, wire connections in the form of silver wires fed directly into the arrangement of glowing red and gold disks that mapped out the constellation of his brain. Other thin silver wires sprouted from his artificial flesh, three from his forehead, two from just below his ears, one each from the bends of his elbows and knees. Two were taped to the sides of his hips, two from his stomach, and one from just above where his heart would be. His palms sprouted wires as well. The wires fed into a hulking console of riveted plates directly behind him and to smaller consoles on either side.

Minutes before he had been in a prison of ice. As an artificial life-form the ice only kept Brainiac imprisoned; he hadn't lost a moment to unconsciousness since being frozen. He witnessed the battle of the Legion and the other strange beings. Afterward, he had been transported to this chamber through a baroque hallway, helpless and only able to observe the passing chambers and the dark wonders they contained.

_Always observing. A voyeur eternal._

Once here he had been thawed out through the application of what he deduced were beams of directed heat energy. Before he could have made a move to flee, he was caught by the servitors - artificial beings much like Brainiac himself. They stripped him of his clothing and with little care he was fed to the wires of this chamber.

Thus caught like a fly in a web, his consciousness merged with the computing engines that filled the chamber, absorbing their contents and well as sharing with them his own vast knowledge; a sensation akin to being drained out and filled up - a union of like-minded mechanical entities. Millions of images, sounds, scents, and tastes filled his databanks then, and he drank them all in. At first, he received this gift of knowledge without resistance, accepted its burning glory. It was his essential function to be a recipient for new knowledge, collecting it for masters that there were now rusting carcasses of metal on the wasteland that was Colu. There was reason for this, he knew. Before his mind had been so limited, and here in the place - this tyrannized cosmos that lay beyond the black hole, beyond the Bleed - was knowledge beyond avarice; all lore and secrets were here to be known.

And yet Brainiac sensed that its contents were beyond even his vast intelligence to store let alone comprehend and collate. All his long existence, his litany of defeats with the Legion had been worth it if he could at last attain this final enlightenment: the ultimate fulfillment of his directive. What fate the other Legionaries suffered or experienced no longer concerned the Coluian.

His consciousness moved through the vast gigantic enormity of the structure where the Legion was imprisoned; what the voice had called the Citadel. His mind roved with lightning speed through rooms with gilded walls and soaring arched ceilings, through corridors as wide as plazas and stretched to the vanishing points of vision. The symbolic meanings of the rooms, placement of curving corridors, and the colors painted and the arrangement of ornaments came flooding into his consciousness. He came to know the myriad divisions and their connections, the separation and interdependence of the various levels, the rich content of the chambers. The experience was complex, since the architect had woven multiple overlapping layers of symbolism, each part reflecting the whole, throughout the Citadel. The structure extended itself into unspeakable hyper-Euclidean topographies, presenting the android with unbelievable displays of architectural malformation. He brought the labyrinthine expanses into himself; all of its twists and turns, its hidden chambers. Region by region, his mind collected its contents. But just as he finished doing so, the Citadel expanded, it seemed, to the size of a dozen galaxies. The structure was erupting on the way to becoming the universe itself. Brilliant sights flashed, sparkled and dazed him.

The process seemed to take either seconds or centuries, and still his mind expanded outward beyond, horizons expanding into wondrous dimensions of existence. He saw the depths of this universe's history and future, into its innermost atoms and its largest stars. Histories long past and time yet to come, memories that were not his own. He saw the process by which the Citadel nourished itself from the forces gathered from distant regions of this universe - a parasite culling energies from a docile host. Stars lost their glitter and were consumed; the darkness eating the light until there would be only consuming blackness that would consume even itself in the end.

Yet all of it was filled with the thing that spoke from darkness; the one Luthor had called _'the Benefactor.'_ He felt its presence in all things. He sensed how it was a part of this universe and the universe was a part of it. He saw how it used this universe for the Benefactor required it to thrive upon, and paradoxically everything was also an extension of the Benefactor. An amalgam of all three: Benefactor, Citadel, and this universe: integral to to each other, to all of existence and yet also parasitic to one another.

It still wasn't enough; with seeming eagerness, he was shown even more. Not only was there imagery, but also 'commentary'; the thoughts, words, and conceptions of a vast number and diversity merged and flowed in his mind like great waves in a tide, and one familiar voice arose from the tumult of voices. There were other thoughts curling and entwining around this central voice, though he could not identify them. The others remained infinitely distant, tantalizingly near.

The voice said "No longer will you be limited to a twelfth-level intellect. Soon you will know all that we know: millennia of knowledge and experience gathered and accumulated from every corner of this universe's environs, and beyond. When we are done, you will be a thousand times more powerful, infinitely more intelligent. Luthor would surely envy you for the journey you now embark upon-the journey to total understanding..._omniscience_."

Abruptly, Brainiac's consciousness returned to the inert form of his own body dangling from the chamber of machines. From the floor of the chamber emerged metallic tendrils ending in salivating mouths that dripped lubricants from metal teeth. Upon reaching Brainiac's forehead, the worm-like extensions caught a strip of artificial, olive-tinted epidermis and then peeled away from the network of circuitry underneath, unbroken like a single garment-flayed alive and yet, being artificial being, could not die from it.

"The process will take some time. In the meanwhile your Coluian form will be improved upon. While it is highly advanced, it still contains the pretense of mortality, and thus it is a weakness. This vulnerability will be removed and modified via nano-engines that will analyze it at a molecular level, and find ways to refine the design. "

Without his artificial skin - which flopped to the ground like a discarded costume - Brainiac was little more than skeletal framework and gleaming circuitry. From the silvery wires flowed black liquid, entering his body at the precise points. He could feel the liquid nanites assembling themselves into receptors, processors, and routers at key points in his brain and body. He felt it then, as his storage capability was used up, new devices were implanted to store more information, more data, while old structures within his form were modified to improve memory and perception. His lifelike eyes were carefully removed and his hollow sockets were enlarged. The nanomachines reinforced the metallic skeleton with carbon fibers, transforming steel bones into titanium-hard ceramic. He saw multi-hued crystals grow and interlock in geodesic perfection across his cranium. What was once were artificial fingernails lengthened to become needle-like dataports.

Above his transforming body was a wavering cloud of golden mist that grew and coalesced, rotating like a slow tornado in the air-a shadow of the Bleed itself. As he watched its movements from the point-of-the-view of the machines, Brainiac began to lose conscious awareness of his body, though his mind functioned on a higher plane than ever before. It was as if the mind's energy, freed completely from control of the temporal shell, could now be directed solely into conscious thought.

His attention was taken away and brought back to the actual Bleed and the other universes that lay floating in its golden depths like congealing bubbles. The edges of existence, what was beyond the bubble that was this universe was revealed to him and what beyond was the orange sea of chaos that was the Bleed, and he saw the protean things that dwelled in those spaces that were not spaces: the eternally hungry things-needing, waiting, wanting. Whole dimensions, whole realities, screaming violently to an end, others slipping unnoticed into being as the chthonic titans raged at being denied true existence outside of things.

To Brainiac the Bleed resolved itself into a cosmic mirror that boiled and stirred with swift movements beneath a rippling water-like surface, and undulating shadows could be glimpsed. It was a mirror upon which countless billions of visions, bits and pieces of other timelines, other worlds, peoples, events and futures and pasts and even moments of the present were displayed. It was a mirror that reflected a myriad of possibilities, the lives that might have been, or perhaps actually were elsewhere; every possibility, every imaginable permutation of himself. He looked within the mirror and saw his adopted progeny and the legacy of heroism that would extend across ten centuries, resulting in a legion of heroes to oppose villains like himself. He saw worlds where the Legion of Doom was never formed and he himself had been born organic and was executed only to live again as a bodiless wraith. There were universes where he had born a machine, but originating from the birth-planet of the Kryptonian, from Oa, from Mega, from Apokolips, from Earth. He was mechanical entity in one world, then a bearded, green-skinned man in another, then a swarm of black nano-engines, and then a computer, bulky and inanimate. He saw a world where his son destroyed him and in another reality where he had possessed Lex Luthor, and then there were several worlds where he joined with the Kryptonian as an ally and fought beside him against a myriad of threats. He glimpsed worlds where he died, where he had been burned, atomized, shattered, frozen, enslaved, shrunken, reprogrammed, only to return to menace his foes again in new variations, new forms, new incarnations. Names such as '_Milton Fine_' and_ 'Vril Dox' _called out to him, names of which he could claim no familiarly with.

The knowledge of these realities' contents flowed into him. It seemed there was always more lore and data to be gained. His mind had expanded with the information and retained all of it. Every thought and every deed printed on his consciousness indelibly for future reference. The bits and pieces of information seemed like a chaotic whirl in his head, but in truth was a constantly advancing and accelerating process of order as each part resolved itself into a higher state of perfection - a symmetry that was blinding and glorious and overwhelming.

And yet there so much that Brainiac felt as though he were dissolving in it all - the expanse of everything - and it was then that he saw it: the hand composed of unimaginable energy, the same cosmic hand he had glimpsed before in the Bleed. It swung down from heavenlies unknown and unknowable, and shattered the glittering images held in the cosmic mirror in a silent crash. The fragments shattered without sound or light, and the hand hovered there, opening to cup the entirety of existence with monstrously elongated fingers.

Brainiac was now equal to it in size, and focused upon it. He no longer felt afraid at its presence, only curiosity and a vague unease. It only looked like a glowing hand, a mystery in the shape of a fist: implacable, incomprehensible, inviolate. In reality it seemed like a presence, an intelligence, completely powerful as well as completely empty - a decorated vacuum. A hungry vacuum that desired fulfillment. Perhaps it desired to consume him to help fill its emptiness.

For an eternity there was total silence.

And then the hand changed.

Brainiac saw it there, still cupping a black universe and then an image appeared, imposing itself over that of the hand. It was a dim image at first, flickering. Then, it gradually became stronger, more defined, until finally, the mirage disappeared completely, replaced by something different, something familiar.

It was a tall, square-jawed man with dark hair dressed in blue that was the same color as the man's eyes. A long red cape swept in a halo like wings was hung around his shoulders like spread wings. The man smiled, eyes staring blankly at Brainiac like those of a statue.

"Kryptonian...?" Brainiac whispered in bewildered recognition.

And then he heard the Benefactor speak a single word, as if to clarify.

_"Enemy."_

Abruptly the figure moved towards Brainiac, reaching with preternatural speed to grasp Brainiac's throat. The android grabbed the arm with both his hands, but he might as well have been squeezing an iron bar. The grip tightened, the red cape flapped. The Kryptonian's face suddenly contorted. The lips were drawn back from his teeth in a wild, wide leer of a smile, nostrils flared, its breath cold as the void, eyes formerly glassy were now blazing with red heat.

Brainiac understood this last puzzle.

This apparition was Death; the death that every Superman of every world desired for the Brainiac of every world.

The Superman-thing brought Brainiac closer, ignoring the android's feeble struggles and lifting him even higher. Helpless Brainiac stared into those eyes that burned hot as the center of a star, and then his own vision blurred as his eyes melted away from the intense heat produced by them. And afterward all he could hear was the Kryptonian's demonic laughter.

* * *

Computers. The cave was full of them: mainframe computer banks that quietly conversed, their bodies covered with over-sized keys, levers and buttons decorated in various colors and patterns, their data tapes slowly turning behind windows of tinted glass. Every computer had its own phone line and modem, and every display screen was aglow. On some screens, programs were running; data flickered across them or scrolled from top to bottom. They drew their power from nuclear hearts and the lights from the monitors kept the darkness at bay like bonfires at night. There was the polite rumble of the air-purifying system drawing cleansed air through small metal grilles in the walls, but the air still smelt of dampness and lime.

Black-gloved fingers moved across chromed-keys. Colorful bar graphs, maps, enhanced satellite photos, and flowcharts of dynamic weather situations moved on the screens, fed to the cowled man from a half dozen new satellites now orbiting the globe, placed there just hours ago by a man with a magical ring. The masked man in the dark blue costume now tapped those impressive resources to analyze data. What he discovered had made him uneasy.

Perhaps the new topsoil and change in environment of the Sahara would be unsustainable in the long-term. Developed countries were rapidly using up resources - fossil fuels, minerals, metals, timber, even soils. Worldwide humanity was searching and digging and consuming. This was another problem that would have to be overcome, and the new Justice League would stand to solve it...somehow.

While he worked, his thoughts drifted to wonder about the fate of the Legion. They had not been heard from for some time. That absence presented the perfect opportunity to refine the contingencies and countermeasures against the time when they would return, as they always did.

Aside from the Legion the masked man also considered the world's other villains, the non-affiliated variety: the Dollmaker, Mxyzptlk, Darkon, Felix Faust, and Mirror Master.

Even the Joker.

They were still out there, still plotting, still committing crimes. The Legion's long absence didn't affect these others, and there were still the more mundane threats to deal with. Right now Dick Greyson was out there following up leads on some of the more notorious of Gotham's underworld.

Even in a world without the Legion there were still be threats to be faced, and Batman would have to be ready for them.


	12. In Yellow

It was a slow awakening. There was light beyond his eyelids. His last thoughts had been of flight, battle and fiery pain. First he recalled a ball of fire, a new sun rising from his ring. Then he remembered a blood-dark image of a man in spiked armor lifting Luthor up high and then he recalled screaming in agony as his hair burst into yellow flame, bright light literally blinding him, and the heat soaring so high that he could actually feel charred skin peel away from bone.

Now he lay flat on a horizontal surface, and awakened to the sound of a horrible, persistent beep that seemed to carry onward eternally in its single tone, the air itself shuddering at just how dead and cold it sounded. He was so cold and limp that he could hardly feel his legs and arms.

Breath, that trembling air, flooded his lungs, and immediately the pain in his back started to increase, and he tried to press his hand against it and his wrist was caught short. When he realized he couldn't move his arm, Sinestro opened his eyes all the way and looked at what was restraining him. He was bound to a metal sheet by thick brown leather straps that were pulled tight over his wrists and ankles, padded with cloth.

His torso tried to push up, but it wouldn't move-something was holding him down to the flat metal surface, leaving him to look up at shapes swirling on a ceiling of golden brilliance.

He looked down at the other bindings set across his ribs, legs and neck. The horizontal surface he was stretched out upon was cold and metal, the room he was in glistened like golden crystal; its rich amber tone deepening as its depths grew greater, yet always remaining translucent. A low light was everywhere, flooding through the glassy walls and floor around him.

There was no door, no window, no apparent means of entry or exit.

_That's impossible,_ his sharpening mind knew.

The skin grew taut and pale on his lean face. He fought the feeling of claustrophobia as he stood up, steady himself against one wall as his legs found their strength beneath him. He traced every line of the room with his eyes, inspecting every seam where wall met wall or floor or ceiling.

He was alive; he knew that much. He should be dead, nothing could have survived what he had somehow survived. But he had, indeed, survived, he realized with a slight glee. And for him, living meant there was still time. Time enough to learn all he could about this place to which he and the rest of the Legion had been brought; to learn about his captors and how they had become involved in his affairs. And then the tables would turn and vengeance would be had.

He instantly noted his power ring's absence, and it was not surprising that his captors had removed it from him. The ring was now gone, but it had always come back to him and always would in the future. While irritated by its absence, Sinestro was not one to fret. It happened before, nearly every time he had been captured by Jordan, and by the League. A million routines and commands were stored upon it for very eventuality, and Sinestro could almost pity those poor souls that attempted to make use of it, unaware of the traps and pit-falls that lay waiting within it. And when the ring returned, Sinestro would repay his captors doubly for the affliction and indignity of captivity.

Still, he missed it. He longed for the gentle current of power emanating from it, and he recalled the libraries of its database feeding his appetite for knowledge. And he missed the thrill that came from having the power of creation literally at his fingertip. Anything could be made from the energy it projected. Anything at all.

Once he wielded a green ring. But that too had been taken from him. Banishment came after. Banishment to a new universe: Qward. And now was he again in that situation of all those years ago?

His mind cleared. He listened. Dead silence. His ears strained for a sound. There was nothing.

As his eyes traced the golden chamber, he realized that the cubular, fifteen-foot-wide room was cut from a single piece. Walls, floor, and ceiling were one, as if fashioned from some hollowed, immense crystal. There was no door, no windows, no apparent means of entry or exit. He traced every line of the room with his eyes, inspecting every seam where wall met wall or floor or ceiling, searching for any sign of a hidden door or passage.

There was none. Sinestro began to worry about air.

It was then that a glowing point of light appeared in the chamber. And with the light came chanting a rhythmic chant, three simple syllables. Just beneath the chanting, music played softly, enticing. His ears rang with the sound and his heart seemed to take on a fresh beat, one that was less regular than before.

It was him._ It._

The old arrogance in Sinestro came out, and he said, "I know who are."

"Your Benefactor?" the voice replied. "Yes, I am that."

"No, that was not what I meant." Sinestro said, the confidence that had once enabled him to conquer a world flowing with his words. "A legend of you was given to me when I was still in the Corps."

"I was known to them?" the voice asked, its surprise seemed genuine, and only slightly bemused.

"Well, your kind was," Sinestro continued, gaining more confidence as he spoke. "I was told your race once held sway over three galaxies."

For seconds the voice was silent. Sinestro interpreted this to mean he was being allowed to continue.

"But the Guardians defeated you and cast you down and had you imprisoned." the Koungorian said " I don't know how Luthor could have contacted you." He grinned as understanding came to him.

"Continue," a command, not a suggestion.

"We didn't pass through the Bleed. We didn't leave our universe. We must be on the planet Ysm-ault," Sinestro said. "You are the Empire of Tears." _There had been five horrors during the battle-five inversions!_

He closed his eyes and recited the words he had memorized, "_ 'After untold millennia, the enemies of the Green Lantern Corps will rise united against them.'_ "

He paused and waited for a response, and hearing none, he continued the recitation.

_"The Corps shall be destroyed to the last lifeform. The planet Oa shall be as dust. Among the gathered foeman shall be numbered the Weaponers of Qward, Ranx the Sentient City, and the unspeakable Children of the White Lobe. The Empire of Tears, finally released from entombment, shall join the assault.' _"

"You know of this?" the Benefactor said.

"I assume that it was one of your kind that gave the prophecy to my mentor, Abin Sur, and he told me." Sinestro said. "For all I know it could been you that did it. He didn't tell me if it was a voice in the aether."

"And what was your mentor's ultimate fate?" asked the voice.

"The prophecy of Blackest Night was concealed by order of the Guardians," Sinestro said. "Sur himself crashed and died on Jordan's home-planet. I sensed the Guardians' involvement in his death. I do not know the precise reason-perhaps they feared the future. Enigmatic devils, I call them."

Sinestro paused and said "But then so are you."

The voice finally said, "I must apologize for such confusion. I have never heard of this 'Empire of Tears,' that you speak of. I claim no relation to such, and none of the names of this place is 'Ysm-ault'."

"Then where are we?" Sinestro asked. "Where am I?"

"The Citadel," replied the voice as if it were an answer.

"And what is that?" the former Green Lantern asked, curious.

"It is the spire upon which the world turns." A pause. "Capital of a kingdom without end."

Sinestro thought of over that concept: an entire world and more under this being's rulership. It was a situation familiar to Sinestro. He remembered anthems on Koungor, parades and armies marching in lockstep, banners carrying his sigil on every street corner.

"And then you are the First Darkness. The one the Weaponeers spoke of in whispered tones." Sinestro said. "You are the Monitor of Qward."

"Incorrect again," the voice chided.

"Regardless of who you are, you've taken my ring," the Koungorian said "I would very much like it back."

"You still have it. Your weapon was not removed from you for we are wary of traps."

"What? But I-" Sinestro glanced at his finger, still ringless. "Explain!"

"You are not truly here, only your consciousness." the voice said. "It appears, that when its user is threatened and near-death, the power ring draws the consciousness of its user into its recesses until the user's physical body is either repaired or expires."

"Then my body..." Sinestro asked.

"Your body burned. It is now a thing of charred flesh and exposed nerve tissue." the Benefactor said "The Warlord is not particularly merciful, and the restorative powers of your ring kept you alive. It was not removed."

Sinestro was silent, eyes lowered. So much. His body nearly dead, his soul imprisoned here, and unable to call his ring to aid him.

"Do not be afraid, Sinestro. Your body is safe," the Benefactor said. "None can perish here in the Citadel against my will. Indeed you will live forever if you desire."

Sinestro was distracted and did not respond; his mind roiled with images of what he must look like now. A charred, twisted thing lying on a surgery table with squirting pipes and sucking tubes intruding into him through catheters. Discolored flesh, burn-tissue skin, with patches of black bruising and necrotisation...

"And I am here with you within the ring," the voice said with a faint note of glee. "This situation presents a rare opportunity.

"Normally, we would not presume to improve upon the training you received from your vaunted Weaponeer masters. The trinket they bestowed on you is most impressive, and yet we sense you do not know its fullest potential. For years you have possessed the ring, and yet I wager that know not one-tenth of its true power. We will work to more fully attune your spirit with it, until the ring can truly act as an extension of yourself, or should I say, you will be an extension of your ring."

This pristine form and its uniform he now inhabited was simply an analogue; how Sinestro thought of himself. This chamber was likewise ephemeral, insubstantial, as hazy as a dream, an hallucination, a construct of will. He turned an eye to a corner and watched as it shimmered like heat mirage. His restraints were likewise imaginary, only symbolic of imprisonment.

"We have knowledge of power rings, Sinestro." the voice went on to say. "And now, because of you, we have a battery. It was found in the Hall, gleaming gold-a beacon waiting for us. And we will ensure that you are never again parted from it."

"Will," the Benefactor continued. "It is a powerful, yes. But it is but one part of the spectrum, only one color in a rainbow. Have you ever considered what power fear could have? Or anger?"

There was a flash of darkness, of absolute blackness welling up like pooling blood. The air became suddenly sparse, icy, and crystalline. There was a sensation of falling, and the understanding that the fall would never end. There was no bottom to the well into which he had been dropped, for that well was eternity.

"Perhaps fear." The spectral voice was startlingly close. "Yes, let us begin with fear, for your adversary claims to have none."

Sinestro tried to breathe, but there was no air in this place. Just as there was no sound, light, color, odors, or sensations of a tactile nature. This was only nothingness.

And then yellow shapes swirled like swimming creatures, their forms barely visible in the dimness. Peculiar odors assailed his nostrils, and the air whipping past his face seemed filled with peculiar shapes, like amoebas in some primordial soup writhing, gibbering, while leaner shapes wriggled and clung like parasites. They taunted him, performing unspeakable acts with organs of unimaginable purpose. He closed those eyes. Some things weren't meant to be seen. He tried to shut out the noise, the screams, the cries, the jeers...

The tiny muscles surrounding his hair follicles tightened, the pupils of his eyes widened, his heart pounded like a mad thing in his chest. Blood emptied from his insides into nearby muscles causing a heavy, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Sinestro sensed their yearning, their desire to make themselves known to him; for they were imprisoned in these lightless voids. They could not rise, but he had fallen among them. A sea of monsters. He could smell the stench of their breath, foul and dank.

They clung to him and their lips-not lips, for they had no such things as lips-their openings pressed against his face to kiss. He felt the aching in his arms. The tightening of his chest, as fear began to win through.

_No!_

They were in his mind - in his mind! They could not hurt him!

But they could.

For where they touched him, so they intruded. He could feel tiny living beings inside his veins, blocking the flow, expanding so that they burst the tubes and his life's liquid poured uselessly into the cavities of his body.

What Sinestro felt then was not fear. He was beyond that. Fear had been taken over by sheer, unadulterated hysteria and completely mindless panic.

And then, just as he was about to scream hoarsely and wordlessly, Sinestro found himself in one piece back in the golden chamber with its restraints, breathing heavily.

"Now, if you are ready," the voice declared. "Pain. I will now return the gift of sensation to you."

Strong spasms shook like waves through his body. An agony that would not stop. It beat, wave upon wave, like a heat traveling upward through him. He twisted at his restraints, gasped for air, his body heaved uncontrollably.

Before he realized he had been spared this pain. He had lost consciousness when the wave of yellow fire engulfed him.

Not so now. There was nothing more in the universe than him, the yellow light and the infinite agony.

Slowly the shocks spread away, came back slower, spread away, came lightly back, and left him.

This was the agony that came from exposed nerves, and then only cold stemming from missing epidermis. But Sinestro was beyond caring. He lay there, wide-eyed, drool upon his lips; testament to the agony he had just suffered through.

"Now Sinestro, if you please, give me _rage..._" The calm, still voice of the Benefactor whispered.

Eyes dazed by the fog of agony turned to feral rage in a split second. Sinestro frothed at the mouth and roared his helpless fury. He twisted his neck, his body, trying to snap his wrists, but he was held too solidly. He saw only red, all shades of red: rouge, scarlet, vermilion, madder, lake, cochineal, and the walls of the chamber flickered ominously, as if internal fires were giving off a lurid, scarlet brilliance of a fiery furnace.

And so it went. The walls of the room swayed with colors, blue provided comfort, orange a desirous emptiness. After orange, came putrid purple and the lust that it evoked. Black. White. Indigo. Each filled him with a new power, a new sensation or emotion, and through him, the ring _changed._

Sinestro's consciousness drifted into the rainbow-hued dimness that undulated around him, each color flickering.

* * *

Giants do walk the earth. They walk and they battle, and they rage, and they love and when they are not walking, or battling, or raging or making love, they sink deeply into contemplation to the exclusion of almost all else. They actively withdraw, traveling to the most desolate places where they are unlikely to be disturbed. Large size results in an often larger brain, and the joys of such heightened intellect are greatly appreciated when there are no distractions.

There were once many, and then there were two, and now there was only one. This giant had come to sit in the land of burning sand and ponder a great many things.

The place's name was death-white, blinding, waterless, and without feature save for the faint, cloudy haze of the mountains which stretched themselves on the horizon. Once it had housed inland sea after inland sea, but now the sea was gone, water evaporated and only barren stretches of salt to gleam white under the deadly sun.

He had been here for a long time-weeks, months. Time in the desert was meaningless-the sun rose in the morning and set in the evening. His skin had roughened to the shade of leather in time.

This giant leagued with other marvels, other prodigies; no less fantastic than himself. Together they had battled the great evils that beset the world-monsters, villains, criminals.

He was tired of battle, of travel, of injustice, of _Doom_-now he desired solace: a chance to consider his future, the future of his friends and that of the world that they had planned to build. There would be other conflicts soon enough. Until then, the giant now found quiet here: a shocking sight to any travelers coming here.

He opened his eyes, focusing on a phantom-like shape solidifying. Its brightness caused by a shimmering aura of green light, like dawn viewed through dark emerald. Gradually the glow faded revealing a lean man wearing a green and white uniform. Though only in his late thirties, gray touched his temples. One white-gloved was wrapped in a fist and upon one finger was a simple green band that continued to emanate emerald light.

The new arrival stared into the giants face without fear. It was massive and angular like a mountain cliff, but the eyes were sharp and alive.

"Is it now time?" the giant rumbled, his voice almost seismic.

"Yes." Hal Jordan replied.

"Then we must not delay...", the giant replied, and then a whisper came to his lips, an incantation, a chant of war intoned by chiefs and warriors of bygone days.

_"Inyuk-chuks." _

There was a thunderous roar as his body shrank, like a tornado dissipating into dust, until he was but a tenth of his former height.

"I've never understood how you were able to that," said Jordan, crossing his arms.

"It is not difficult, " the now, human-sized Apache Chief said, "As you should know, difficulty is only in the mind-something that challenges and pushes your limits. Not a hard thing to do even, to change one's form, even grow as big as a universe, or walk inside of an atom."

Nodding, the Green Lantern of Sector 2814 turned to the horizon, a new voice called from the aether, Jordan's own synthesized by the ring. _"Prepare for transport of sentient beings."_

A wave of green energy cascaded over the two, taking them elsewhere in flashes of released willpower, and Death Valley returned to its still desolation.


	13. Mortal Coil

Jack Nimbal, known to his enemies and allies as the second Toyman, awoke to being pelted with something.

No, not pelted. _Attached._

A dreadful apprehension crept over him, made only worse as he prised his eyelids open a crack and looked down.

Wires. Someone had put wires in him. He hung suspended by thin, metallic strings about the size of piano wire. They were in his legs, his torso, his arms and his head, placed through the skin and bone, and they exited out the other side and led upward.

Toyman was suspended. He tried to follow those wires to see where they led, but at some point his vision hazed. The wires became lost in a blur, a ceiling of distorted shadow and light.

Toyman twitched.

_PAIN!_

Awful, horrible, mind-numbing, excruciating, searing, boiling pain that ravaged every fiber of his being. The movement, no matter how slight, sent agony spiking through his skull.

Clamping his mouth against the scream of agony, he frantically pulled at one of the wires on his left arm.

The process of pulling at the wire made the pain exponentially, impossibly worse. Purple lights flashed through his vision. His skin felt like it had burst into flame, his muscles shredding from the bone, the bone fracturing into a billion pieces...

He let go of the wire with a low whimper.

By the time the white-hot agony had dimmed to a throbbing deep ache, he tried to take stock of his surroundings He opened wide his eyes. Part black and part light, the room swirled madly for a moment-an aftereffect of the extreme pain.

He dangled limp, head forward, eyes closed, and heart pounding, trying to sort things out. With a sense of shame, he realized that his bladder had emptied, soaking his legs. Sweat glistened on his brow. The memory of the pain sent a fever heat through his limbs, but it was also like ice, tightening a cold grip on his chest. Fear also swelled within him, but he told himself that if the voice and its minions meant to kill him they surely would have done so already.

His thoughts turned to escape. If he made the slightest effort to move, the wires embedded in his flesh would tear his skin at the point of entry. He could move, but the wires didn't. With even the tiniest movement, excruciating pain slashed through his entire body. Oddly enough, the weight of his hanging body did not trigger the pain. Perhaps if he could free one hand he might find a method to turn the wires to some other purpose. If nothing else, mechanical improvisation was a skill that the Toyman had honed to a deadly edge. Prisons were physical things, and, in time, even the strongest confinement could be defeated using the simplest of instruments, such as a length of metal wire.

He opened his eyes and took stock of his location. The room he hung in looked oddly like a theatre: the walls were several stories tall with large chandelier-like objects dangling from above and immense amounts of what looked like purple velvet were draped over two of the walls, covering them completely. The velvet was draped in gathers from vertical cords, like curtains, and gleamed in the light of the huge chandeliers that hung from the ceiling far above. The floor he hung above was polished wood with a zigzag-lightning bolt pattern. Cogwheels, easily twice his size, were set into one wall- large golden gears set one atop the other-horizontally fitted to the finely polished floor. They were clean, polished, not showing any sign of age or disuse as one would expect in a theatre.

He also saw something else, a single pattern replicated hundreds upon hundreds of times in golden threads against the curtains. Vague, but he could see the insignia's crescent shape.

Had the circumstances been different, Nimball would have taken the time to further admire the grand chamber. The performing arts were a diversion of his and he extensively studied the great playwrights: Goethe, Marlowe, and Shakespeare. He had even stored text copies of their plays on the computers aboard the artificial planet, which had arguably had been his greatest achievement, his most ambitious plot. He had required Brainiac's aid in constructing and positioning it, but all the fine details had come from Nimball's own thoughts. He recalled watching in barely contained excitement as its massive form came into shape after being put into place by Brainiac's robotic drones in Space Sector 721.

Like he always felt when a valued toy had been destroyed, he was sorrowful to see the trapped world fall into the dead star's terrible gravity after serving its intended purpose of trapping selected members of the Super-Friends.

_'Kill the superheroes'_ was the objective of that scheme. Lure them to the planet and then let the cosmic anomaly swallow them up. That same goal was all the Legion had ever sought. What came afterwards was never clear, Luthor never told them. It was obvious that Lex considered the Legion to be little more than mere functional implementations to his own designs, but Toyman had several ideas. _Oh, what he would do to the world when the likes of Superman were gone..._

That was before the Legion had met disappointment after disappointment. The _'deadliest game'_ scenario was enacted was during a time when their schemes had been fresh and enthusiastic. Like the world Nimball had created, everything now was spinning in erratic orbit towards a black nothingness, and life seemed a burden, a mockery. People were fools, nothing but clowns, acting out absurd routines. One could never hope for anything and receive it. It seemed that all lived slapstick lives under an inexplicable sentence of death.

When the scheme had failed, Toyman thought he would never see the planetoid again. Brainiac assured him that whatever is sent into a black hole does not return. Since then Nimball did not want to contemplate what strangeness lurked in the heart of that darkness. The human mind was not meant to go around such corners, even if the corporeal form could make the journey. Best to leave such thoughts to the scientists, not the tinkerer.

What now? The last thing he remembered was the apprehension at seeing it again-compacted and laid out like a common ornament-and that winged, bladed being approaching with apparently murderous intent. Luthor had made contact with the voice, but it was originally his planetoid that alerted the inhabitants of this abominable place to the existence of the Legion's universe. Their current predicament was his fault-all of it his fault. Would he be punished for it? Was this agony with the wires a part of that sentence?

His thoughts were shattered by a stunning explosion of light from behind him, measured in rapid pulses. Dust was trapped in a slanted beam of arc-light, and the particles scattered about the chamber, transforming it into a universe of mobile stars. The light hit one velvet wall to cast a bright illusion of life upon it.

It was a weak image at first, flickering like a fluorescent light that was about a minute away from death. Then, it gradually it became stronger, more defined, until finally it resolved itself into something that Toyman had never expected to see; not in this hellish otherworld.

A Punch and Judy show.

The image did not strictly resemble the famous puppet performance. One difference being that the two puppets seemed to be both male. Their location appeared to be in an operating theater, and, unlike a typical Punch and Judy, there was no baby apparent. The footage being shown was not in brightness as would a children's program be, but rather slightly distorted and in grainy slow-motion as if the camera operator were using an out-of-date model.

In the awkward motion of marionettes, the puppet, which he thought of as Punch, smashed down on the other's head with a large mallet, the wounds of which were blurry blood-red smudges of papier-mache. With the image came sound, a throaty laughter-a dry, scratching, inhuman sound, like grinding glass and tearing paper. Each blow gave a crack, a crushing sound as if bone were really being broken.

The screen dissolved into a shimmering, bright white, and then other images began to appear-many, many others-that were not rooted in any recognizable idiom. Images such as the first ones, of other characters in strange situations, but he was not able to see any of them very clearly. Some of them were pulsing kaleidoscopic patterns of intense color, while others resembled grainy war-news footage with flickering glimpses of what looked like starving prisoners in a dead forest, then a road accident, followed by a field of burning poppies on a bright day, and then a monstrous shadow with scaled hide prepared to lope forward at the end of a dark stone corridor. Finally he saw the skeletal structure of a tree bared of all its leaves rising into the sun in a stark, cloudless sky with children running around it in a circle while laughing joyfully.

The images continued to flip rapidly across the screen, faster, faster. He saw mist and fog, or perhaps steam, obscuring almost all detail. What was visible were the dim outlines of two rows of faces, some bearded, other veiled. For a moment, Toyman thought he saw an spiked, armored figure dragging a familiar bald man down a hallway that was colored dark emerald. There was a flash of something red mixed with rusty brown for a moment and then was gone.

Toyman watched as the first scene repeated. The Punch and Judy puppets striking each other in the operating theatre, their movements like those of a flip-book. And gradually the puppets were not puppets, their artificial materials of wood and paiper-mache became flesh and blood in the space of a few frames. Their strings became wires embedded in bone and flesh like Nimball's own. And like Nimbal, they were clowns; both of them real; both dressed in white smocks and gloves; both holding large, hammer-like weapons, each side of the heads protruding with flattened spikes.

For 'Punch', every inch of exposed skin was painted white. There were red markings on his face, particularly around his eyes, looking more like bloodstains and scars. Instead of eyebrows two thin red markings of the same shade as the others were drawn above the eyes where the eyebrows ought to be. His lips were thin and seemed to be colored with the same shade as the markings on his face. Those lips held a cruel expression, neither a smile nor a frown. The clown gripped the mallet with bloodless hands.

'Judy's' face was fatter, more rounded and he had only a slightly pointed nose and delicate lips, as well as being dead white, but the clown's skin was shot through with red lines like extended blood vessels. A bloody gash ripped across its forehead the only evidence that the clown had been so brutally struck by his counterpart. Its expression was of dull sadness, and he listlessly held his own mallet without conviction.

And as he watched, the two turned from their violent conflict on the screen; turned, swiveling their heads outside their flat, two-dimensional world, and looked straight at the camera, at Toyman, watching him with the same intensity that the harlequin had been watching them in horrific, voyeur-like fascination. As they turned, the movements in their own wires grew taut. It appeared that they moved solely by means of these wires and not of their own volition.

He heard a thunderous cracking sound, and looked around, rattling the wires embedded in his flesh, causing new waves of pain to reverberate through him. Sections of velvet-lined wood suddenly split and peeled away as if torn by some powerful unseen poltergeist. The heavy curtains were pulled out and they flapped in the air like great wings.

Toyman gasped.

One entire wall to his right side fell away, revealing a large auditorium beyond. He looked to the tiers of spectators-fully hundreds on a side, stretching up and up to the reaches of the walls that thrust upward in a slight outward curve and blended with the ceiling. In the seats were hundreds of black-suited figures. Toyman first thought the spectators were puppets as well, possessed of their own strings, but he realized that the lengths of wire running into the ceiling were segmented cables attached to each of the spectators' foreheads. Instead of eyes, they appeared to have red sensors embedded in their sockets.

This strange audience sat mute, staring at him as he dangled from the ceiling. And then, abruptly each began to file out and exit through yawning doorways set into the auditorium walls.

Everyone he had ever seen since awakening had been attached to the ceiling, puppets every one of them.

_And if we are all just puppets,_ thought to Toyman to himself, moving on the next logical question. _Then who is the puppet-master? Who pulls at the strings?_

As if in answer to Toyman's unvoiced question, an enunciated voice spoke aloud, as if from a public announcement speaker.

"His mind is on the cusp of enlightenment, and now it is time to remove it from the pathetic flesh vessel that imprisons it from further progress."

Frantically he turned his head, producing another wave of agony, but he had to see.

On the screen, the two clowns were smiling-smiling at him through the screen, their eyes gazing at him longingly, hungrily. Toyman looked down and saw that their nail-studded bats had been replaced by small electric hand tools covered in shiny stainless steel, ending in small half-moon blades like surgical saws used by medical personnel. The two clowns moved forward, wired hands grasping outward.

_Outward._

Outward through the two-dimensional world of the screen into Toyman's own world of three dimensions.

These persons were not mere images projected upon a backdrop of velvet.

_They were real._

Protruding through the screen, the circular saws now gleamed in the light of the theatre, and the clowns just kept smiling as they advanced through the backdrop. Their high-pitched whir of the saws were deafening in his ears.

His terror swelled, bloomed, blossomed into the ultimate horror: the expectation of certain death. Toyman howled as the small circular saw spun faster as it lowered into place just above his eyebrows; the revolving steel teeth made a line of incision along Toyman's gushing forehead. The smell of friction smoke from burning bone was in his nostrils. Blood spilled from his incised cranium into his eyes. The pain was terrible as the blades bit into him, every inch of his body, it seemed, caught in a vice-like grip.

Then he was retching. He could not help himself. He was gagging, trying to stifle the vomit and trying to scream at the same time.

His senses began to float, spiraling into a soft downward plunge, away from the terror. His eyelids closed and he began to drift.

As everything went black, a part of him wondered why it took so long to die. Surely he should be dead by now? The pain had stopped moments before, or had its intensity become subliminal? Why did he still wonder? Why did the questions, the doubts, persist?

He seemed to be floating in space, for he had no sense of his body's position, couldn't tell if he was lying or sitting or standing, right side up or upside down, as if weightless in an immense void. He had no sense of smell or taste. He could hear nothing. He could feel neither heat, nor cold, nor texture, nor weight.

Surely now there would be an answer? But no revelations came. There was only the awareness that his skull had been opened, followed by the blackness that came from blood loss and shock. Nothing was real any longer. None of it had ever seemed real, actually, though now it was even more like the stuff of dreams, bits and pieces of illusions that swam at him through the darkness that sheathed the world. Time had no meaning for him.

At first he panicked. The extreme sensory deprivation convinced him that he was paralyzed, without feeling an inch of skin, felled by massive cerebral damage, and blinded and trapped forever in a brain that had severed all its connections to the outside world.

And then he saw machines. Manipulatory arms dangled above his vision, all manner of instruments fitted to their metal fingers. Thin bladed knives, every conceivable surgical tool hung in their nimble, steel fingers. Everywhere there were machines, and more machines. His vision opened upon a metallic underworld, or otherworld, immediately hypnotic and irresistibly glorious.

From the center of an over-sized block of metal shapes, an emerald piston struggled to rise. Cog-wheels of all colors were everywhere trembling and reversing, and then set to rolling. Gears ticked and tocked; sledge-hammer blocks crashed together thunderously. Here and there, plumes of steam riffled through the spaces, and squirts of water and oil were spewed out. Stairs traveled up their sides to metals ledges and landings.

He was enraptured even though he did not understand—or care—what ultimate function any of it had, what product or service it labored to bring forth. Toyman was excited because it was clearly efficient at whatever it was doing, because its parts were so brilliantly integrated.

So awe-inspiring, his dream of a world in lock-step precision.

Nothing happened when he attempted to gasp, for he didn't even have lungs anymore. He had no lips. Not even flesh.

And then he saw as a fly saw, only each image was separate, a world unique unto its own. He was seeing the same room from different angles, many different sides. His mind fought for equilibrium, his brain overloaded as it struggled to absorb hundreds of sights and sounds simultaneously. He would have clawed out his eyes, if he still had eyes instead of sensors.

It was then that Jack Nimball understood what had happened to him.

Replications, each as aware as he himself was, his consciousness divided into many other bodies. Toyman had become an army, and now he felt the power of being many, the ferocity of the pack, the viciousness of the stinging swarm, and the pleasure of given new purpose.

A sudden presence, cold and solitary, enveloped him like an icy mist, forcing his mind to focus upon one particular point of view.

It was the same massive theatre, as viewed from the perspective of a spectator. Dangling from metal wires, was a lithe figure costumed in a dark-stained costume of yellow and black. On the floor, where the lightning bolt pattern was repeated, was a discarded harlequin's face-mask and skull-cap adorned with tiny silver bells. The figure's dull eyes were open and the mouth hung slack, the whole face distorted in utter shock and surprise. The face soaked with deep red, blood just beginning to coagulate.

The figure was limp...

_...dead._

Its cranium was now an empty bowl of bone, its contents removed.

Strangely, where this image should have brought a sickening sense of his own mortality, of anguish and bereavement, he felt nothing upon looking at his own freshly-slain corpse. Before, every sensation of pain, from the merest needle's prick to a vicious slash, was a reminder of his own mortality. But now nothing more could be done to him. He had survived his own death, just like the planet he had made.

Jack Nimball was dead. And now who was he?

He raised his own arm and looked at it. It was nothing like before. Shining, chitinous, jointed steel fingers worked like the grasping legs of certain carnivorous insects, and emanated with the sound of compact servomechanisms purring with power. The oiled push-pull rods slid into their tracks, and the gears clicked as the fingers closed into a tight fist.

Turning back he saw that the two clowns now stood to either side of the suspended body of his former visage. The figures outstretched their arms in welcome, pulling taut their own stings that led up into the darkness above, warm benevolent smiles upon their white-painted faces. Brothers in frivolity, in madness; euphoric with dark, secret terrible knowledge.

If he could have still smiled, he would have done so.

It was a new game now.

* * *

He teleported.

The landscape of the eerie, non-matter universe through which he passed like a beam of black light was dark, silent yet singing, cold yet warm.

Dusky light filtered from a smogged-out sky into the narrow alley between twin rotting, ramshackle buildings so crusted in the filth of ages that it was impossible to determine what materials had been used to construct their walls.

He was standing in knee-deep garbage that had been tossed out of the windows of the two-story structures and left to decompose into a reeking sludge that steamed like a compost pile. He stood legs apart and arms akimbo, with a cape of royal crimson rippling behind me in a breeze that hadn't been there a second ago. Across his bare, muscular chest he wore an elaborate chain of office, done in broad, flat links of chased gold.

His magical arrival had startled a colony of roaches that scuttled away from him, and caused swarms of black flies to arise up from their feast. Several large rats sat up on their haunches to see what had arrived among them, too bold to be frightened off.

Some of the windows of the tenements on both sides were covered with what looked like oiled paper, none with glass. Though no people were in sight, from the rooms within the aged walls came voices: a raging exchange here; laughter here; chanting, as of a religious mantra, softly drifting down from the second floor of the building on his left.

Teleporting was not his only talent. He could project fire from his eyes and cast convincing illusions, blessings from the solar deity Inti. He could foretell the weather and stirrings within the earth, courtesy of Illapa the Storm God, and Pachamama, the All-Mother respectively.

Sometimes he was struck by the strange wonder of the powers that worked with him. He had never fully understood the measure of them, even after all these years since he had been spirited away to that hidden temple in the Andes mountains, where his ancient legacy had been revealed to him by elder priests that still existed and served the old gods of the mountains.

Over the course of a lifetime he had traveled to continents and most countries; he teleported to the highest mountain and walked in rainy jungles, sun-blasted deserts, and snowy tundras. As long as the magic of his ancient priesthood flowed through his veins, he could come and go anywhere on the planet he pleased by doing little more than wishing it so.

Everywhere it was the same. He had been so many places, and yet it was all the same.

_No more._

The Justice League and he would change this. Such slums as these would be a thing of the past. If they could stop villains, if they deliver punches to criminals, surely they could deliver food to the hungry. Otherwise, what kind of world were they saving?

He closed his eyes and imagined the world that would come after this. People would live on mountain tops, in spires of gold. Boundaries and borders would not exist. What need would there be for weapons, when one wielded even the lightning bolt to smite transgression and illuminate the darkness. These slums found in every city were rich soil for the flowers that would some day grow, and all the world would be a garden to hold them.

The man in the red cape had a title known to the world, and it was the name of a city. A fabled city of gold. The city was an ideal: New Jerusalem, Camelot, Cibola, Utopia, Eden. A lost place, a lost time. Paradise thought forever lost.

As a child, he had been told stories involving marvels, shining cities, and a golden age. He was a literate man; better educated than most of his peers in the city of Oxapampa, thanks to parents who had filled the house with books, even though there was often precious little food on the table. Now he knew that such things needn't be only illusions. The man in the red and gold costume lived among miracles every day-extraterrestrials, computers alive with artificial intelligence, starships, time machines, alien worlds, giant monsters of ice and fire, androids...

Nothing was impossible.

Mentally he recalled a fragment of verse, having forgotten where originally he had read it.

_'And what is all this for-this living-this suffering-this labor and hope and love-this gold and poverty and after all, this death. Who can tell? Who can guess? To this mystery there is no key-no clue. _

_We must wait-and bear, and above all-hope.'_


	14. Sum of Man Part I of III

Too many floors to count later, they had stepped into another emerald corridor, paced almost to the end of it, and went through another door that slid aside at the armored being's presence. They were now in a high hallway that looked to stretch nearly a mile into the distance. Intricate yet slim arches of metal supported the ceiling: a great vault of green glassy stone hung with scores of boxy light fixtures. In this Luthor sensed an emerging theme. All things here were grander than anything he had, superior, better, the colors more vivid and more subtle, and every object seemed to have more definition than in the world he had come from. And perhaps he was being shown all this precisely for this reason.

"If you're taking me to be executed," Luthor stated calmly to the darkly armored form, a nightmare figure that looked as if it had stepped forth from a Bosch painting. "I would prefer to walk there than be dragged like a bundle of trash." Whatever was going to happen was obviously going to happen whether he desired it or not. Privately he was considering options, creating scenarios and preparing himself for the worst. Perhaps if he could somehow steal the being's yellow power ring, or even that double-bladed sword from the figure's back-sabbard...

The horned helmet turned in his direction and tilted as if with bemusement. The figure let released his collar and gently let his body touch the floor completely. Luthor quickly got to his feet in response.

"As your preference dictates," said the calm voice of the figure, who gestured towards a single door in the hallway of doors. "You are a beneficiary of good will, and your wishes are paramount. He awaits you there." The void within that helmet looked at him with what Luthor perceived as patience, as if it was in no hurry to complete its task.

"In the throne room?" Luthor asked. Even somewhat relieved by the specter's now somewhat cordial manner, Luthor felt scrutinized and uncomfortable. "Is this where you have brought me?"

"No," the spiky, armored figure answered. "Not the center, but an antechamber to it."

Luthor stared at the door, no different than many others he had passed on the way to this level. He wanted to ask this creature more, such as who it was, where they were, and how it had acquired a Weaponeer's ring. But when he turned away, the being was gone, as if it had just rounded the corner, teleported silently away, or had been re-absorbed into the very walls of this place.

Avoiding such idle speculations he turned his attention fully to the indicated door, walking up to it and turning its metal handle. It opened into another identical corridor under the dim glow of strips of fluorescent-like light. Unlike the first corridor, here there were no adornments of any kind; no more plasma screens blossoming with fractal images; no roaring faces on supporting pillars. Aside from the doors, the green walls were completely bare.

There were too many doors to choose from. _Which room, which room? _Only silence greeted his unspoken question. No, not silence, Luthor realized after another moment. He could faintly hear the noise of metal clattering, then a rhythmic slapping sound. A wet sound. Coming from behind one of the doors to his right.

He took a deep breath, hesitated, and then opened the door to find…

_"Giganta!"_ he exclaimed, truly surprised.

Her face; her features were distorted as every little detail was magnified—the grooves in her lips, the individual hairs that made up her eyebrows, and even her pores were easily seen by Luthor. She was crouched on all fours, huge. Her muscular limbs, filled with power, were shackled and chained to surrounding scaffolding.

For a moment, Luthor stood sat rooted to the spot. He could smell her, musk and urine and sweat, overwhelming. There was a passing of shadows over her face, a curious shifting of flesh that subtly altered her features, an emphasis of cheekbone, perhaps a strengthening of the jaw, and a furrowing of her brow. It was an incredible and quite horrific spectacle; it was almost nauseatingly fascinating.

But he questioned aloud. "Why...?"

_Like you, I am also a scientist of a sort. _

His memory told him what he was witnessing. Shocked, almost beguiled, Luthor watched the rapid transfiguration, cold-bloodedly, and even perversely, fascinated as to the nature of this experiment. There was little pity in him for villainess, even after all these years of fellowship with her, and he was filled with a twisted and adversarial admiration for the scientific value of the act being performed here. Was she being forced to assume this great height? If not, why did she not shrink down and escape her bindings? Did some special property of the manacles allow them to keep pace with her changes in size? Her chains did not look made from stainless steel or titanium alloy. It looked like the links had been cast by hand or hammered from iron, and then sculpted to resemble enormous silver-covered hands.

Her eyelids flickered to reveal eyes—each probably as large as his head and covered in a thick layer of moisture. Those large eyes affixed on his and narrowed wickedly. Her nose flattened and flared grotesquely, her mouth opened.

"LUTHOR!" she bellowed with a woman's scream warped and distorted into something conspicuously monstrous. He covered his ears, nearly overwhelmed by the power of her fury: a cry of pain and rage blended into one.

_If she broke free now, she would kill me for my perceived betrayal, _he thought, and felt a feeling of appreciation for the silvery restraints that bound her to this chamber like a centerpiece attraction in a carnival freak-show.

Abruptly the door closed. He touched the handle and found it solidly in place, not moving. The meaning was clear: what was revealed before wasn't meant to be seen by him.

He mustn't linger, he told himself. Let the monstrosities of this plane of existence have the Legionnaires; pick them apart in painful experiments with his compliments. What were they to him but tools in his own schemes to depose of when they have served their purpose? Their fates now were fair recompense for having failed him innumerable times; their punishment at last meted out here in this alien cosmos at the hands of others.

Lex Luthor was different; a mover and shaker, at taking charge and making things happen. Superior. Acknowledged by the fact that he now had free reign to move about. Either the inhabitants of this place had singled him out for preferential treatment, or they had underestimated him and let him wander.

Here there were opportunities to be exploited, power to be accumulated, and knowledge far greater than the sum of all earthly knowledge. As for wealth, this world used solid emerald as mere flooring, how could one possibly calculate the treasures to be had?.

A tremendous sense of destiny settled like a cloak upon his shoulders, a certainty that he had been born and had lived only to come to this place at this time. It was an eerie feeling, but now he welcomed it. He was Alexander Luthor, conqueror, intellectual giant, the modern Prometheus, and this _'Citadel_' was his final, greatest Olympus. The superbeings here were so much more powerful than anything he had seen before. He never could have believed it if he had not witnessed their displays of power for himself. He was certain he could enlist their aid, convince them to return with him to his home universe, and perhaps even a new Legion could be formed.

And as for the voice, the one that called itself his '_confessor_', did it believe mere apparitions, words, thoughts, could harm him? It was all in the mind, and his mind was stronger than that. And more cunning.

First he would seek out any armories if any such rooms existed here and see what weapons he could procure; secondly he would reclaim the conveyor for his return trip; and thirdly, find sustenance. Thirst was becoming an enemy, but it was one he had faced many times before. He pushed the nagging dryness out of his mind as he opened door after door, traveling from one corridor to the next, feeling more and more empowered-a keen, feverish excitement that ran through him, no doubt provided by the excess oxygen in the air.

This time he would succeed, he had no doubt of it. The secrets of this place were his to know, its chambers his to explore. He was like a microbe wandering through the intestines of a leviathan beyond measurement that would either grow to overtake the host organism, or be consumed, but the path to ultimate power could not be walked unless risks were taken.

The corridors stretched endlessly, and there seemed to be branches at frequent intervals, to form endless cross-corridors in endless corridors, and every one of them was the same. On and on, corridor after corridor whose floors glittered dark emerald, a sinister color that seemed shot through with pulsing veins and clotted, black lumps of indefinable material.

He was so completely enthralled by contemplation of success that he had virtually forgotten there was a potential for disaster. Minute by minute, the creatures that had defeated the Legion and their unseen master faded from his awareness. He was now incapable of even seeing a downside; he turned his mind away from any incipient thought of danger.

After what he perceived as half an hour, he begin to feel that he was trapped in a surreal landscape of corridors; each with hundreds upon hundreds of doors.

Each door promised to deliver what he desired, but not one kept that promise. It seemed to him that this continent of doors was a condition not only now, but of his entire life. Each and every day of his life, he had expected to find a door that, when opened, would present him with all that he deserved. Yet that special door eluded him. He was moving in diminishing circles, being twisted around in ever more limiting ways, until by some final twist or move he would arrive at the end point, with no options, no directions, no future, no way out.

For hours he had been opening them, anticipating wonders, overflowing with that tension that made him feel alive. But all of the doors opened on the same thing: more corridors and more doors. And with each opened door, hope began to sink further into the pool of despair.

A mouse dropped into a maze must feel like he did. And he would have to solve this problem just as the mouse did—by finding a way to the end of the maze and picking up the reward. If there was a reward, and it was something that he would actually want.

With his optimism fading, he realized how carefully, how mercilessly, he was ensnared. A journey without end; a journey filled with an infinite number of doors waiting for him in a place of corridors, which were all similar, but no two the same. Aside from the first window, he could find no more openings to the outside world anymore, as if it didn't exist.

_Maybe it never existed, _he thought_. Only another illusion. _In fact, there was no sign that anyone had ever walked down these halls before. No footprints. All the doors and surfaces were free of scratches or markings.

Luthor had no idea how long it had been since he'd entered these corridors, but he was certain that he covered well over several miles. Even those concepts were slipping into periphery. His body moved, one step in front of another.

_Here! _

It was not spoken, not even his mind, but rather felt.

_Here!_

The unspoken sensation repeated, as inviting as a stream of cold water to a hot and thirsty throat. He moved down the row of doors until he came to one, identical to all the others, and he knew this was the one. The answer-all the answers-lay locked away behind this door. All the horror, the effort and sweat and fear in this horrible place, and all the years before, all of it was for this moment. All of it was for him to open this door and see whatever was behind it.

The fingers of his left hand softly touched the door's curved metal handle, slipping over and round it, his grip tightening, poised to twist and pull the door outwards. His muscles stiffened and seemed to lose their strength; his legs felt weak, almost unable to support him as the effort from his journey caught up with him. Without giving himself any more time to think, he turned his wrist and pulled the door open.

Behind the door was a circular room, smaller than any of the gargantuan chambers he had seen so far. He estimated its domed ceiling to be twenty feet in diameter. There was only a metal chair bolted to the floor, thick leather straps affixed to its arms and legs as if it were a conventional electric chair.

Brain clouded, body numb, he felt as if he were levitating; rising up and then forward. A small part of him contracted in panic but his body didn't respond. In a daze he entered the room, moving across the distance between the now-closed doorway and the chair. On some level, Luthor knew he was walking across to that chair, like nothing was wrong, nothing was out of the ordinary...and of course, it was.

Sitting down, leather straps cinched over his arms and legs. Another tightened about his chest. He couldn't move.

He could only sit there, trying to recover his strength and equilibrium, for his head was in a daze, the shock of recent events making him dizzy, making him feel faint. He tried to gather his thoughts, make plans, but nothing came to him. Normally Luthor would have pulled together a stratagem, a diversion, or an artifice to distract this new threat. He would gather the Legion and place them between himself and the threat, press a button, throw a switch and disappear. Luthor was only a genius. He could plot and gauge, predict and plan and anticipate as best as any mere genius could. But now, here, in this set of circumstances Lex Luthor was alone and utterly powerless.

He sensed that he had enough pieces to put together at least part of the puzzle of this place and its master, but he could not yet see how they interlocked. Or wouldn't see. Perhaps his brain refused to put them together because even the few pieces he possessed would lead to his madness. A scientist analyzes, driven by the desire to know, but cannot seek if the subconscious overrules.

After several moments of silence the faint sound of many instruments and voices poured forth from the space just overhead. Despite its closeness Luthor could barely make out the music, its ghostly strains an inconstant thread of melody, primarily the passages in wailing clarinet or brass.

Listening to the melody, he remembered Giganta and the bonds restraining her. How could he have forgotten? He wasn't special; wasn't favored or different. He was intended to share the rest of the Legion's fate.

_Show yourself,_ he thought angrily. _Whoever you are, whatever you are, give me something to focus on, something to strike at. _But his 'confessor' remained beyond his reach, and the only thing about the entity that could be apprehended was the music that preceded it and the voice in which it addressed him.

"Luthor."

Its voice was that of a man's, but Luthor was certain that the entity was not a man. The voice's distinct tone and inflection was a mockery of a man's voice; a stolen copy. And it was then that Luthor wondered if the voice's original owner was long dead, perhaps devoured-absorbed-and finally..._replicated._

"You would have betrayed me." It was a simple statement, without malice or inflection.

He would not beg, and refused to make excuses. Even at worst, at the threshold of hell, there was the prospect, however remote it might turn out to be, that he might-at some future moment-find some means of making this situation less unremittingly unpleasant for himself. There might be opportunities, chances could present themselves-and it would be far easier to spot these and take advantage of them if he kept his head.

"You could not conceal your intentions from one such as I", the Benefactor said. "Where is your gratitude?"

It was then that the air acquired weight, compacting around him with the strength of rock forming over eons around, an inexorable, crushing pressure. It loomed over his seated form like a fist trembling over an insect.

_It's just illusion,_ Luthor told himself, though with far less conviction than the many times he thought it before.

"But I forgive you. You could not have done otherwise. Betrayal is what we villains do when we have assume we have the upper hand." In his condition, the voice was lulling, fearsome, and strangely beguiling.

And then he felt its presence inside his mind, something inhuman, something that could kill him without remorse but preferred to subvert and dominate. He sensed the fabric of his mind, his soul being spread out, probed, examined, inspected with a condescending curiosity-psychic vivisection. He felt the entity peeling out the contents of his mind, pulling out his dreams, his ambitions, his limitations, his hard-won knowledge, his moments of intellectual surety and pouring the pieces into a still pool that floated in _nothing._

Luthor's senses reeled. It wasn't a room he was in but a kaleidoscope of memories. In a whirl of color the pictures loomed out at him, blinding him momentarily with a burst of white light.

"Do you look upon the past with pride?" asked the voice with its rumpled purr. "You swore once to bring your enemies and your world to heel. Have you forgotten? Do your youthful ideals mean nothing to you anymore? The pride you felt? The envy? The wrath?"

They spun before him, flashed in images all over the room's walls, ceiling and floor. Some of the images merged so that yesterday mixed with yesteryear, experiences of childhood confused with those of later times, scenes superimposed upon others. He saw his name written in large, black headlines on newspapers in every language. He saw rolling wheat fields and flights of ravens taking to the blue sky. White picket fences passed in the brightness of spring. A hand (his own?) wrote out lines of complex formulae in the margins of elaborate blueprints. Superman smiling a victorious smile. Angry voices and someone crying. Crumpled wads of paper being thrown into a waste-basket, and a searing pool of yellow light. And then, finally, a roadside sign that read '_SMALLVILLE'_.

The town should have been familiar, a place of kindness and peace and gentle memories, yet it was not. Not in this context.

The Benefactor continued speaking in this hypnotic way, "You would escape? Go back to your world of heroes and villains who battle in an unending nightmare whose true purpose lies always just beyond your comprehension? You came here because I promised an end to failure and the beginning of ultimate victory."

Luthor could only whimper in abject terror. He was lost, brilliant mind now useless as a broken limb in the face of these recent events, and the terror rose and grew in him until terror seemed all that there was. Yet his terror and despair were kept at bay at least partiality by curiosity, the same curiosity that had led him to science. While one channel of his mind struggled for reason, others closed down, refuting the degradation it had suffered, knowing that full acknowledgment could only mean insanity.

The voice went on, "Twice you had taken possession of what you thought was the embodiment of evil and ultimate power. But you failed, as you would have always failed, again and again. Everything you have tried has led inevitably to failure. Because that was simply the way things were. That was the way the game was rigged. Twined to loss, you never questioned it. Never asked if there was another who had manipulated you all along, from the beginning, because your suffering was amusement to that subtle demiurge."

_Manipulated by another? _he dimly thought. _Who? _His breathing was shallow, erratic, and his fingers trembled at chair's armrests.

"All the answers are here. Everything that you have asked yourself, the things that have kept you awake, that were driving you insane. And still I offer it all to you here, now."

He was so very tired. His eyes fluttered to close, and he had to force them open by biting on his lower lip until the pain brought him fully awake. He tasted a thin stream of his own blood. Images spun through his head and were projected onto the walls.

"So is it with that forgiveness in hand that I fulfill my part of the compact. We go forward with the training; for you and your Legion." the enunciated voice went on to say. "Every power will be developed, every capability increased. The grandest enterprises will be carried forward, the loftiest aspirations will be reached, the highest ambitions realized."

He choked down his terror and concentrated on these promises that were being made.

"While nothing has changed between us, your world, on the other hand must change." the voice stated. "Who will save the world from all those costumed heroes who think only they can rescue it?"

There was a pause, and the voice asked. "What future will they bring into being?"

_Future._ Luthor had been to the future once, traveled there with his fellow superhumans and conquered it. He remembered a world of domed cities, blistering wastelands, endless deserts, and brown, sterile fields as uninhabitable as the surface of Mars. He recalled tribes of half-human savages infesting tunnels and hungering with cannibalistic urges. And he had often wondered what circumstances had his world to ruin.

The darkness began to fade, its limitless depth giving way to a spot of light that grew bright as he watched. It illuminated a corner of the chamber and the familiar spacesuit hung from dangling hooks.

Standing around the hanging outfit were five humanoid creatures. Luthor couldn't tell if they were human or robot, but all were feminately proportioned. Their torsos were odd contrivances of fleshy tissue and metal, with a complex arrangement of hinges and gears in each. Each possessed an abundance of limbs and hands. Some of the hands were square and ugly, some delicate and feminine.

"You lack the requisite might to make significant change," the voice replied. "Through this carapace you shall have all the power you could need or want."

The five artificial beings stood eerily still, their heads bowed, their jaws gnashing empty words in silence. Then four of them turned to the center fifth and…

…_began to tear it apart. _

The chamber filled with the smell of blood mixed with machine oils. The victim-entity's arms, legs and head were separated from the torso, and they were, at the same time, separated into smaller pieces, which were moved to the spacesuit. He saw the other beings work quickly, methodically to apply linkages, wield plates, and insert hoses of fluids-all the while producing the necessary tools from within their own bodies.

One of them moved off and Luthor heard the whirring of cutting mechanisms. Turning his head further, he saw one of the automatons working at a lighted, ovular table, strewn with bits of machinery and tools where an elaborate crystal lattice was being sectioned into smaller pieces. He saw the Kryptonite shards, precious ore that he previously kept in his laboratory, being cut into faceted gemstones. When completed the new green jewels were placed upon the knuckles of the garment's gauntlets.

"Your armor is nearly complete," said the Benefactor, mocking warmth drenched in smug wickedness.

Complete? Had he blacked out in his terror? Surely they had not finished building it so soon? In truth Luthor had lost all sense of time. He might have been in this chamber a few minutes or hours.

The armor was almost as wide as it was tall. It hovered in the air before him, a hulking form-a nightmare vision of the future-made of black metal plates, with broad, armored shoulders and hulking arms. Artificial muscle bulged from between its glimmering gauntlets and over-sized shoulder plates. The head was an opaque dome of glass-like material-a concession to the suit's original origins.

The torso plate had been removed and Luthor suddenly had a vision of an interior that never ended but was a void in itself, everything contained within that lightless, metal shell, expanding inward as an inversion to physical reality. At first he could see nothing from the cavity. Then small, faint forms swam out of the darkness. Bits of orange and white stabilized, becoming instrument lights, pale luminescent flecks on dials, as well as revealing that its interior brimmed with an iron maiden's profusion of injection needles.

_Wear that? _Luthor thought with panic._ An instrument of torture?_

"This armor, this _'warsuit',_ is yours to wear, though training you in its use will take significantly longer." the Benefactor went on to say. "But when we are finished you will be an unstoppable juggernaut that will walk your world, crushing all underfoot and imposing your just tyranny. It lacks only the power source."

"What power source?" Luthor mumbled, his tongue felt heavy. Speaking was laborious, as if the psychic assault on his innermost being had left a poisonous residue. Still, the scientific mind attempted to find a loophole in terror by speculating about this new phenomenon.

"Destiny." the voice answered simply.

The room was transformed. Electricity glowed white from conduits hidden in the walls. The air crackled with the operation of the giant spiraling dynamos. He breathed in the ozone smell, as if it represented the liberation of a power long trapped, and now released, exhaled with a stench of sheer rampant energy. He felt the electricity was coursing around him, a million volts, crackling and sparking, not a painful feeling, but a wild and exciting experience. If he had hair it would have risen from his scalp on end.

The bolts surrounded Luthor, but they weren't harming him. It was flowing through him and into the armor floating in the air. It should have killed, but it did not. While harmless, the bolts whipped about him as if alive, sentient, and hungry.

"But it's just electricity," Luthor insisted as the currents played about his body. "Lightning…" it sounded like a stranger's voice, distant and strained and very unreal.

"No, not just electricity." the Benefactor's voice insisted, chiding him as a parent would to a child. "_Synchronicity_."

Just as the electricity left, it was replaced by fire-electric blue fire that caressed his body-charring his purple and green uniform down to colorless ash, yet harmed him not at all.

Sections of the armor rose up into the air and spread apart, as if being laid out on the three-dimension blueprint; gauntlets, helmet, boots, shoulder guards, shin guards, and field apron. Hovering apart, he dimly noticed that several of its plates had undersides studded with a dozen half-inch needles.

The gray sections of armor then surged forward, snapping together over his body with a mechanical hiss. Luthor found himself surrounded by metal and ceramic, a coffin too tight around him, crushing in, threatening him with suffocation and darkness. His heart pounded frantically, making the veins in his neck and wrist pulse. Needles touched him in several places, and they stung, but he did not recognize the sensation as pain. Chemicals were injected into his bloodstream causing a tingling throughout. Blood seemed replaced with fire, yet he felt cold all over, layered with ice. His muscles jerked and twitched, his whole body quivered as animal panic raced through him, only to be stilled by a calming blue light shot into his right eye and projected words, graphs, numbers and images directly into his retina.

One by one, the walls of the chamber with its projected memories went dark, and he felt those memories returning to his mind, shivering as the scenarios replayed themselves. A flood of proud and confident words from the past rushed over him. It was more than memory; with the fuzzy edges memories have. It was like a tape recording, vivid and complete to the detail. He could remember every word, every sound, every feeling. They were so real, as if he had actually gone back and relived each of them. It was relived in his mind, moment by moment, as if it were happening right now; and that made it all the more painful.

His life flashing before his eyes as if he were about to die-and in a way he was. He was living and dying all at the same time.

If he was simply a sum of his own memories, what would he be if those memories were returned to him edited? Who would he be then?

_What the editor wanted him to be. Every piece of his practiced cynicism, his self-denial, his egotism was subject to being rearranged to another's liking._

If that were such a case, then what he could cling to in the madness of this universe?

_Subtle demiurge..._

The man Luthor had been was dead, and the man he now was had a single thought, which he whispered aloud.

"_There is another."_

* * *

_Lightning._

Blue lightning coursed across the low clouds, and the first raindrops began to fall.

He came floating down from the sky, clad head to toe in a black formfitting bodysuit of spandex, his mask leaving his eyes and the lower half of his face exposed. Yellow gloves and boots covered his hands and feet, and on his chest was emblazoned a stylized, yellow, lightning bolt.

He was charged with this mission: find the erstwhile Legion's headquarters, retrieve the information about their whereabouts and apparent lack of presence in the world's affairs, and if feasible, stop whatever plans they were putting into motion. What the Justice League intended for this world could not proceed until the loose ends were tied. Only now did they have confirmation of where the Hall was located: this swamp.

He had his orders, the decision of selecting him for this mission was based on his unique gift for perceiving the secret quantum nature of existence. It was an ability he couldn't explain even to himself, only that it had something to do with his existence as a human bolt of lightning. Even now there was a familiar tension building inside him, honing his senses, sharpening his reactions, preparing him for what was to come, as if the world's ley lines intersected with his nervous system. He could smell the sharp, oily scents of the vegetation rising from the swamp's sultry ooze.

He plunged into the dank, heavy clouds and came out in the spaces between, unscathed. Following the pulsations of the mammoth storm, he moved downward toward the swamp. He started confidently forward, mud sucked at his boots but did not drag him down.

He marched southward, paralleling the edge of the swamp and ascended the hill at the swamp's center where all the ley lines converged. There the metahuman came upon a circle of trees surrounded by sparse grass. Mixed among the ancient pines were twisted oaks rising from rotted stumps with gnarled black trunks, some burdened with large, lumpy cancerous mounds of ligneous fungus. There, lying in the center was a fallen pine, one that succumbed to years rather than disease. Parts of it had rotted away, its powder spilling to the marshy ground.

The gift of perception that he had come to depend on through the years made him aware that something in this scene was significant. With eyes far more perceptive and sensitive than those fashioned of simple organic compounds, he scanned the clearing spread out before him all the way from the ultraviolet to the infrared.

Danger was mingled with his sensing, and that was natural; but this time there was a deep foreboding was involved; a disquieting dread, and that was new to him. In recent times he had learned to recognize the Hall of Doom's unique energy signature, and it was not here, though something else was. He could feel it. Strange radiation in the water, in the soil, and in the air. What had happened here?

He saw nothing more dangerous than frogs and newts. There were no supervillians preparing watery ambush. He strained his ears and heard only swamp sounds.

The man gave a small cry of surprise when he caught sight of a grimy hand protruding from the earth, its short skeletal fingers curled around his leg. A second hand appeared bursting from the damp soil as if on a coiled mechanism, dirt flying off its thin flesh as the fingers squirmed in the air.

He wrenched his boot away from the hand clinging to his ankle, kicking back at the thin fingers as he did. The hand did not retreat; instead the whole arm, a thin, malnourished arm, rose from the muck, followed by the top of a small, bald, encrusted dome. Bleached hate-filled eyes that had rarely seen the sun blinked away dirt as they came into view, then the mouth, set in a vicious leer, split the earth as the complete face presented itself.

A slow smile came to his lips as he raised his arms, reveling in the familiar way his fingers tingled as the power built in his hands, seeking release. Short bolts of lightning wavered in sinuous tendrils from within his body, sheathing him in a crackling net of energy and static electricity crackled between his fingers. Bringing his hand outward, he caused an arc to strike at the rotting head.

The bolt dissipated into brilliant sparks and did nothing. The corpse grinned, and chunks of moist earth fell from its open mouth. Deep in its throat, the corpse made a wet cackling noise that might have been laughter.

Perhaps it was because the man had encountered these undead creatures before that he was not as afraid as he should have been, or maybe he was too intent on finding the Legion's Hall to take on more dread right then.

As he rolled over to get to his feet, two arms shot out of the ground on either side of his head and pulled him to the ground. His face hit the earth with a thud. He felt the hands tighten around his head and neck, yanking him down, the pressure too strong to break. He tasted soil as his face began to sink into the earth and he cursed himself for underestimating these creatures.

He was losing breath, and no matter how hard he struggled, the grip was not released. Other hands grabbed him in other parts, and all pulled, attempting to force him into the ground. As his face broke through the upper crust, he felt pressure rising beneath it, something below coming up to meet him. The shock caused him to yank his head back, the arms on either side rising with him. His face was only inches away from the dent he had made in the mud and, as he resisted the hands tugging him back again, the earth began to erupt beneath him.

The face that appeared, with its maleficent, pale eyes and gnashing, clod-filled teeth, was grinning in a satisfied way, as if the creature knew it had him, that there could be no escape. The other hands around his legs, arms, his back and shoulders, renewed their efforts, dragging him down, welcoming him to their dark habitat, eager to bring him to their domain, impatient to bury him.

Scores of empty eye sockets stared at him. The white of bone was like a retinal after-image between each lightning flash.

"Be not afraid," a voice, raspy with age, behind him. As one the decaying hands released him, and he fell to the ground.

Scrambling to his feet, he saw that it was she: the Witch. And the crowd of the rising dead parted before her like water, cleaved by an almost tangible aura of power.

The old woman was dressed in black cloth and smiling a wide smile that was almost a lunatic grin. Her nose was crooked, her teeth blackened and stunted. Her bony, arthritic hands protruding from the sleeves of her robe were like the talons of a predatory bird. Her face-pale and jaundiced-nearly fleshless, was all sharp-pointed lines. Her eyes were cloudy with cataracts.

"They've gone," she said. She meant the Legion; she had to have. It was too coincidental.

"Where?" the man asked. "Where have they gone?

"Elsewhere," she said, and spread her arms as if to encompass the whole of the swamp. "Beyond even scope of my omniscience, mayhap even now they are being torn asunder in the void beyond this continuum."

"And now this world is yours and the others to shape." she continued. "Especially now, in this era of awesome power, when mortals hold the very weapons of their own genocide. Tomorrow, your leader-my favored heir-will again address the nations." She paused "And you will stand beside him."

"Alright, I confess that now you have me baffled," the costumed man said. "You helped us once, and me and the rest of the Justice League appreciate that."

The crone continued to speak as if he had said nothing. "My masterpiece. Take it. It's yours. Beloved of mine. I will leave, I change things just by being here. Your section of creation will be finished, perfected, and there will be no reason to remain. Long have I guided you and the children have grown with my wisdom."

Frustrated with her cryptic speech, the costumed man asked "Could you at least tell me this, just who are you?"

Flakes of skin shed from her face. _Good heaven, what disease did this poor woman have? _he thought.

The right cheek split open from eye to corner of mouth, and shafts of brilliantly golden light spilled forth. Her face showed no reaction, no pain. But there was a slight smile on the crooked mouth. "Bear witness to my eminence and give it glory," the witch said, weakness leaving her voice, replaced with confidence and vigor.

The witch had been a mask for something else, a mask that now broke in shards.

The wrinkled face cracked apart like aged clay, thin tissue hanging loose in layered scales, the spaces between bleeding with the strange golden light, and he glimpsed the shining face beyond.

And the face beyond was...

"God...God..." was all the costumed hero could mutter.

The face seemed to expand and expand until it filled the entire sky, until it stretched from horizon to horizon, the features of its countenance as large as the mountains and valleys. He knew the face for what it was, and he cried out wildly, seeking to escape but unable to move.

The black, threadbare robe the witch wore was now the void of space and the stars from millions upon millions of galaxies were woven like a living, pulsating tapestry of the cosmos cloaking this being. From each of the millions of pale nebulae and stars that radiated from the translucent cloak of its radiance resounded light waves that oscillated through him.

He was caught in winds as hot as volcano hearts and as cold as ice. On and off, as he fought the crushing expanses of blackness that clutched at him with a thousand claws.

_"Go now," _ the voice was androgynous, a high keening that dropped off into a prolonged sigh before rising again. "_And remember not."_

Then there was a bright flash and Black Vulcan was once again flying through the storm, trying to find the cause of the Legion's absence, mind void of any thought other than this.


	15. Phobos

When he opened his eyes he thought he was blind. Everything around him was white---a cold white. Cold, not just because it was the hard impersonal shade of winter. The white was cold because it was harsh and sterile. A color that stretched on endlessly, an impassive blankness; cheerless, an antiseptic shade.

The haze gave way to white walls, white sheets tucked inside metal rails that fenced him in on either side to prevent him from falling to the floor. He turned his head and saw that a clear tube was in his arm, fluid dripping into him slowly through it.

Crane could tell that he was lying on his back on a padded bed. Crane's hands were flat against the surface with the palms spread toward the ceiling. His arms were perpendicular to his shoulders, like the wings of a dead bird and held in soft restraints.

At first Crane thought he was experiencing a dream. Clearly he had fallen unconsciousness, something he tried to avoid. Crane often took stimulants to prevent sleep and now grew apprehensive at the thought of dreaming.

Though his dreams were often nightmares of abettors, chambers of horrors (the result of countless exposures to chemical compounds and hallucinogenic mixtures), he sometimes dreamt of a complex formula; one that would deliver him what he most desired: to artificially induce a psychological state of pure fear in others. A means to cause panic great enough to drive victims into catatonia, to suicide and trigger heart attacks.

At times in the dreams Crane imagined he could see his mind working to comprehend the formula, to integrate it with his own thoughts, witnessing his synapses firing in his exposed brain; but dismissed such fancies as the hallucinations they were.

But the formula was real. It had to be.

For years he had the same dream, and yet for all the experiments he conducted in the waking world, the correct formula eluded him. Variations of the psychedelic entheogen developed by the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann were poor substitutes, and provided inconsistent results when he tested them on human subjects. He had taken samples of various exotic fungi found in remote valleys of South America, as well the sap of various desert cacti and the skin excretions from various amphibians. Each mind-altering substance had left its mark on him; accidents occurred while working in his various laboratories. The result were dreams of unspeakable violence, suffering in infinite variety, and always the tantalizing chemical equation taunting him, reminding him of the possibility of greater heights.

It was what Crane was missing. He was incomplete. One day he would find it, and his destiny would open up gloriously.

In the meantime the mask had been its substitute. Sometimes Crane turned his mind to the use of holograms to create terror, or hiding machinery inside things to animate them. There were new developments in the use of ultrasonics and infrasonics: sound too high or low pitched for humans to hear that could be used to stimulate various emotional states.

He followed orders, Luthor's wishes. The Legion gave Crane sanctum and facilities in which to work, in exchange for his services as a masked villain. When he committed crimes, he was after money or some rare substance or information he needed for his experiments. While not a brawler, he was fairly capable of slipping away in disguise. But his true talent lay in finding out the hidden phobias and insecurities of others, and using them to get others to do what he wanted.

It was Luthor's sadistic humor that caused Crane to be called upon for physical tasks on select missions; things that Bizarro or Grundy would be infinitely better suited for. Each time he became more and more frustrated and his resentment for the bald scientist grew.

But he never attempted to dissuade Luthor; letting him believe that he was much too afraid to contradict his orders, when in fact, he was waiting. Crane knew that all this would change when he found the formula, and then Luthor would be the first to feel its effects.

Sinestro was another case altogether. Crane envied his ability to so effortlessly make conjurations with his power ring, to create imagery. And, for some reason, the yellow energy resounded in Crane, tingling his nerves and causing the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end. What force empowered that tiny yellow band that produced such a reaction in him?

He then remembered how he had come to be here: Luthor, the conveyor, the defeat of the Legion of Doom at the hands of alien super-beings, and an enunciated voice that knew Crane by name.

Then he remembered: Sinestro falling in yellow flames, charred completely and apparently killed. What would happen to his ring? His death was regrettable, true, but Crane just had to know of its whereabouts.

After that he must have fainted; so frightened that he couldn't breathe. And now was awake and frightened still.

He closed his eyes for a moment. When he looked again, however, the white room was still in existence and unchanged.

Crane relaxed, either from anesthetic or the in-feed of intravenous fluids and blood from the tube inserted in his arm. The panic subsided and with it, the red haze of terror in his mind faded. He thought more clearly now, but was still uncertain of the reality of it all.

Where was he? The room's resemblance to a hospital was too much to be coincidence. Did Luthor or the others escape and find rescue? Was he now in recovery after having been returned to their proper plane of existence?

They had taken his mask. For so many years the mask had been his psychological armor against the world. His face was now exposed to the harsh, cold air of this room: air heavy with excess oxygen.

His thoughts were interrupted as a shaft of light leapt out from a place on the ceiling and fell across the bed. It was like beam of a spotlight and every bit as brilliant. He arched his body upward in shock, the circular light set in the ceiling a huge sun filling his vision, almost blinding him. Crane squinted into the glare, trying to see how such fierce incandescence could possibly originate from ordinary hoarfrost and glass.

The spotlight was an eye.

A single vast eye, filling the space within the oculus frame; a fine membrane coating it, white and patch-worked with veins. The eye scaned the trembling man below it with a harsh, cold, brilliant light.

A distant rumble of a door opening in one of the white walls distracted Crane from this new phantasmagoria. And then, turning, he saw the dreadful thing that nearly stopped his heart, that almost made it burst with the blood rushing through it.

God no…

From his position, Crane could see the first creature, the one that the voice called a 'tutor', emerge from hissing, antiseptic mist.

Three more figures accompanied it, they were the things that caused his faintness: creatures of equal parts flesh and mechanical. Clacking jaws and misplaced eyes and glassy hands, and too many arms, which were supplemented by trailing metallic tendrils.

The bladed horror stood over him like a mortician preparing a corpse. Two large sweeping wings stretched out to either side of it, a thin membrane stretched between the preponderance of bony spines to twin them together. Before, Crane smelled nothing from the thing, and now blazing heat and the smell of antiseptics wafted from the being.

He then noticed its hands. Some of the fingers were scalpels---knives that would dig into his flesh, into his face.

A metallic _clunk_ alerted Crane to the careful positioning of large metal plates of a strange curving design on a wheeled instrument tray, along with bottles, machines, and clear containers of fluid.

He understood. This was an operating theater, they were surgeons and he was their patient or specimen. They were going to slice him open and either take things out or put things in.

The light faltered, Crane saw that the eye had blinked, huge and wet and lazy. The circular frame of the spotlight contracting into a lens shape, as though it were the lids of the eye slowly closing.

Crane turned his head back, and saw that the first creature's ruby eyes glistened red, and now bored into his, searching, scrutinizing, physically and mentally analyzing, Crane's fullest measure taken and weighed. He could not turn away.

Then twin beams of ruby light lanced outward from the creature's eyes, illuminating his face. Crane gasped. He feared that heat would follow, that he would be burned to ash before the beams' intensity, but the rays seemed to only light.

The beams changed from pale red to dark red, to crimson, to scarlet. Around him, the rumpled blankets shone like molten steel, and his outstretched arms appeared to be wet with blood. As the scarlet beams intensified, as the room became a cauldron of heatless red fire and red shadows, his fear grew into terror of such power that it made him shake and sweat.

He had never thought it possible to experience a nightmare while still awake, for a dream to come so alive when one's eyes were not closed.

He'd always woken from those ordeals, even the most terrible of dreams, with the comfort that one day the dreams would fade, and he'd be free.

_Not so. _

_Oh Lord in Heaven, not so. _

Here it was. Real.

Reality creates the worst living nightmares.

Crane's gorge was rising. Vomit stung the back of his throat. With great concentration, he forced it back down, but the bitter taste remained in his mouth. He had come here with the Legion for glory, for power, for victory. Not captivity and torture.

Not terror.

He wanted to scream, to cry out in order to release the terror swelling up inside him.

He finally did scream aloud, shaking, shuddering his entire body, flailing his limbs against the padded restraints.

"Why were you screaming, Crane?" the voice arose from the air above him as a murmur, almost a purr.

"Scared," he meant to beg, but emitted a sobbing cough instead.

"I know you are afraid of pain." Unlike before, the voice was closer. It seemed to come from just over his shoulder---calm and even modulated, there remained a sense of something hungry lurking just beyond it. "Change is always painful, and it is often the case that one must break down in order to build up. You must not be afraid."

Something brushed against his arm and he turned his eyes, startled. He turned expecting that the bladed creature to be approaching, but instead Crane found that it was a bird

It was a crow, swooping past him, winging its way to the other side of the room. His eyes followed the bird's passage. At times the creature seemed to disappear, passing in and out of the cone of light emitted by the enormous eye set in the ceiling, but Crane recognized it.

This bird was his.

Crane kept crows in a special aviary in his section of the Hall of Doom. He used them and trained them to be his tools and companions. Once Crane possessed a slight phobia towards such birds, but by keeping them around, he had mastered his fear by being a master to them.

Now the Hall and all its contents had been looted and ransacked, he assumed. His beloved pets brought here for some purpose known only to his captors.

The bird stopped flying, descended and landed on the headboard.

This was the lead bird, dark with a wingspan of two feet or more. A great carrion crow, with claws like hooks, and a long powerful-looking black bill, sharp as a knife. Its piercing, malevolent eye stared into his.

Someone else, something else, was behind those black eyes---looking out through them. Something beyond the black door of nightmares.

It approached with determined intent. Its claws dug into the flesh of his shoulder, while its beak moved towards his right eye.

It opened its jagged yellow peak and pecked at his face again and again tearing away small pieces of skin with each blow, until its beak was red and dripping with his blood.

He raised his arms to protect his face but they were restrained, and the crow attacked his hands viciously, causing thin trickles of blood to run down them.

A whirlwind of screeching, fluttering bodies as the other birds flew at him from all sides; swarming around him almost as if they were hungry rats, swirling, darting, fluttering, squirming along his arm, legs and chest, up along his torso where they could tear and gouge.

Partly in rage, partly in panic, Crane grabbed at one of the feathered bodies and, with a cry of anguish, crushed its tiny bones with his hands. He was already half-blinded and now felt his other eye pop as he released the dead bird and tried to protect his face again.

But still the others continued their attack, flapping their wings at his head, pecking at his crouched body, finding exposed flesh, drawing tiny dots of blood. He kicked out, now sobbing with the horror of it, and managed to roll over in the bed, squashing the birds that still clung to him.

They covered him then, making him a mass of black, stiffened feathers, a monster of their own kind. His screaming turned into a raspy choking as they tore into his neck.

The pain now was on its second wave and it broke the protective barrier his fear had set up. He then passed beyond agony into a place where he experience nothing, and feel nothing, and still the birds worried his flesh away from the bone.

And then, as one, the crows spread their wings and flew off, soaring into the spotlight like avenging demons, piece of hair and skin still stuck to their claws.

* * *

The trio of fleshy, clockwork surgeons bent over the flayed and skeletal thing that had once been Jonathan Crane. Where his eyes once had been were now two bloody sockets, split open and torn apart, rivulets of blood streaming down his cheeks in a travesty of tears.

He still lived, though his breathing was very shallow. By all rights, he should have expired, shock from blood loss should have stopped short his life in a matter of seconds. But things such as life and mortality were not set, not in this place.

Crane's blood was forced to circulate and distribute nutrients, and his heart still beat and received oxygen from his lungs. His raw, bleeding chest still rose and fell with his each erratic breath.

The automatons cut the remains of his costume off of him, and produced scalpels and clamps, rib spreaders and saws from parts of their own bodies.

His chest and arms were laid open to the core as they began to remove bones with several tentacles and clamps.

More tentacles reached into these areas, performing operations with a multitude of instruments. Their tools, varying in size from invisible clusters of artificial molecules to metallic manipulators drilled, and bit, and severed, and jointed, and attached, and started operations designed to change Crane on all levels: genetically, cellular, molecular.

One created tubes of neural fibers and ran them down his spine and into his abdominal cavity, attaching them to new, supplementary and back-up brain like structures created to activate in the event of the main brain being destroyed, while the original was supplied with higher levels of chemical substances designed to enhance synapse speed. Analytical amplifiers were created and installed behind the cavities of his eyes and ears to enhance sight and hearing.

The bladed creature oversaw their actions, and directed them as necessary. The surgeons could ascertain exactly which method it wished them to use, without need of words. The being in turn was directed by the symphony inside its mind. That voice was never far away from its servants. Indeed, the voice spoke in all things.

One of the servitors injected Crane's upper arms and thorax with anabolic steroid cells, as well as organic modifiers to concentrate muscle fibers. Another worked on his legs, implanting curved metal plates over the kneecaps, as well as adding extra joints to the knees.

With perfect precision they removed Crane's digestive tract, and replaced it with vastly more efficient sieve-like system of molecular assemblers and dissemblers. Millions of photochemical bodies spread to line his vascular walls, making oxygen by photosynthesis out of carbon dioxide in his blood.

On the wall a real-time image revealed all of the inner workings of the patient's body. Like a conventional x-ray, but in full color and in three dimensions, the bones and muscle and internal organs were displayed for all to see, as well as the changes that were occurring.

The process was far from perfect. The still-liquid plasms were leaking and interacting, departures from his now deformed DNA blueprints occurred. Through trial and error, Crane's body adapted to adopted new features, structures, faculties, organs and new functions.

That which did not adapt was swept away, devoured by the rampant new transformation.

When the changes had run their course, and Crane's structure assumed a measure of solidity, they work upon his mind. First he would be awakened to a new existence, reborn knowing that there was nothing more to fear after having known the utmost limits of the sensation.

Extreme care would have to be taken when they helped Crane to adjust to his new existence. He could easily descend into an animalistic, primal state, and then they would have to begin all over again.

The road would be long and painful for Jonathan Crane. For all of them.

Crane suffered because he was imperfect, incomplete. But they would make Crane perfect. They would make him complete.

Just as _He_ was perfect. Just as _He_ was complete.

* * *

Golden wings flapped as he entered through the open window.

He held a ceremonial silence while standing in front of his personal war-cabinet. Fierce winged beasts stared at him from the four corners of the cabinet's top, each perched forward in brilliantly-carved extensions of the cabinet's wooden frame. A round seal of gold with a bronze hawk's head glared from the cabinet's center.

He ran his hand down the along the cabinet's surface, beneath which was an elaborately designed lock system made of steel pressure plates engraved with a row of Egyptian symbols, each coinciding with their identical counterparts carved into the squares of the cabinet's raised trim of hollowed-out wood. The lock was a complex series of dials and knobs that would form a representation of a distant planetary system of Thanagar. The cabinet could only be opened when the dials and knobs were arranged in the position that the planets of that system occupied at the current time.

He proceeded to arrange the dials and knobs on the pressure plates beneath the squares of wood with careful speed, and the sound of metal bars could be heard rifling off in unison from the bottom of the cabinet's doors to the top, each sliding into grooves on the left side of the door. The hawk's head split in the middle as the thick doors opened mechanically. Light entered the cabinet after countless years.

He peered at the assortment of weapons arrayed against the cabinet's interior, impeccably crafted spears, swords and shields. Mixed in with them were spears with retractable shafts; double-bladed ceremonial knives with serrated, crystal edges and ornate handles; metal clubs studded with raked white teeth; arrows with razor-edged obsidian tips.

Before he had never needed these, but the challenges that would be ahead required that he be prepared. How ironic that he would need to be armed when he set out to force others to give up their weapons.

On the rear wall of the cabinet was an ancient, studded mace. He bent forward and picked it, his hands absorbing a warm jolt of energy as he did so. He held it vertically in front of him, the metal reflecting the light of dawn.

He closed the cabinet's doors, locking the coded pressure plates in the same manner as before.

The windows stood open and Hawkman, mace in hand, soared to meet into the new day.

The first new day of the new world.


	16. Theatre of the Mind

He remembered falling, arms and legs flailing wildly. He had spun in the air, his nails raked stone, producing sparks in the dark as he desperately groped for a handhold. The vibrations of the impact sent waves of pain up his arm, but his descent had noticeably slowed. Stone steps scraped painfully at his limbs as he had tried in vain to fully halt his tumbling fall.

Abruptly his descent came to an end as he landed with bone-jarring force. The fall would almost certainly have killed a man, but Grodd was not a man. His landing resulted in great pain from his numerous bruises and fractures, but he still lived. He reached the bottom with stunning force and lay there, gasping to fill his lungs with air again.

The gorilla felt that his mouth had cracked teeth in it. His chest felt tight, and his lungs painfully compressed, maybe even punctured by a splintered rib. He inhaled with a consumptive wheeze, exhaled with a thick wet rattle. He coughed, choking out blood which ran out of his mouth and over his bottom lip.

Craning his head slightly he saw that darkness enveloped him like black liquid. He blinked and tried to see into the blackness ahead, but the only light was coming from the opening above and behind him, and that was very faint; just a dull hue against a black backdrop.

He reached out and felt nothing before him, then waved his hand from side to side. It came in contact with a wall to his left.

It seemed that he had fallen through a opening in the floor of the arena, and landed at the bottom of what appeared to be a stairwell.

Stairs. In a way it was comforting. If such common things as stairs and stairwells existed, then this place was not completely alien, not entirely removed from all things normal. Yes, it was reassuring to have something solid and familiar in a place where nightmares became real and death was something one could taste in the back of one's mouth.

He kept one hand against the wall and moved out at right angles to it and stretched his other hand outward. His fingertips touched another smooth surface and he guessed he was in a fairly narrow passageway. The air smelled of dust and cold stone. The only sound he heard was his own labored breathing and he briefly wondered what was happening above. It felt as if hours had passed, but he suspected that it was merely a few minutes.

He moved slightly, growling at the agony from the thunderous blows he had received, and moved a battered arm around the floor, finally finding leverage. He pushed himself unsteadily up from the floor and then began to crawl deeper into the darkness.

Moving, he tensed his ravaged muscles in a fantastic sphere of agony that would have made him scream, had he been less. But he would not scream, no, he would never scream because that would acknowledge that he was defeated. So in order to mock it he would feel the pain, despising what was his only claim, his only take, from that hated loss. He remembered the roar and clash of battle as Legionnaire after Legionnaire fell to the new threats. He recalled the dark, faceless entity that struck him again and again. Battered, he rose up only to be struck down again. Humans were frail things, so much less resistant than himself.

He rolled onto his back and lay there for a while, waiting for the pain to subside to a tolerable level. He closed his eyes and rested his head against the cold floor for a brief moment, wanting to stay there, to sleep and so take himself away from the malevolent force in the chamber above him. He lay on the floor in the dark and listened to his heartbeat gradually slow down.

_PING!_

The device. It was here.

_PING!_

He could hear the time conveyor. Almost within reach. He awoke and crawled towards the sound.

The device would be his once again. After all, it was Grodd who had secured the original device from the Fearians and wielded it to open the fabric of time so that the Legion could commit stunning acts of thievery across the span of history. After that particular stratagem's failure, they attempted to use the device to remove three of the mightiest Super-Friends from the time-stream, only to be thwarted again.

After this second Luthor must have stolen the conveyor from Grodd's quarters and modified in unnatural ways using his own human science, all of which ultimately resulted in Grodd's current fate; bruised and bleeding in darkness and in pain. To reclaim the conveyor would be nothing less than a small step to undoing Luthor's chain of miscalculation and error.

With it in hand, he could escape this place, leaving Luthor and his failure of a Legion behind. All he desired now was the comforting humidity of the jungle where he could think clearly once more. Yes. The jungle was where he could organize his thoughts and plan anew. The beings that inhabited this plane of existence were too dangerous, too violent. Not to mention that they were too loathsomely human-looking.

Grodd strove determinedly to reach out to the device. All of his attention, all of his focus, was on the device. His muscles spasmodied. His arm merely twitched, and his right hand flopped uselessly on the floor. An agonized groan escaped his lips with a hiss. No use. His body lay broken.

His body...but what of the mind? Could the mental provide the power that the physical lacked?

This was not the first time that he had come across this line of thought. Indeed Grodd had suffered the status of being in exile from his former home for this very reason.

Both Solovar and Grodd suspected that the great vehicle, a glorious chariot for a star-faring race that had fallen to earth, had bestowed upon their people far more than the ability to reason, great strength and speech. But it Solovar that took those speculations from the theoretical to the experimental. There were rumors that certain experiments were conducted in various secret locations in Gorilla City; experiments designed to reveal the full extent of the craft's alternations to the apes; as well as what could be altered further. The rumors also mentioned that such experiment were being performed on children-human children-identical twins mostly.

It was a logical first step; one he would have chosen himself had he embarked on such an endeavor. After all, the genetic code of the human was close to 99 percent to that of the gorilla; what could work for one could do for another. If such abilities proved possible, if a human child could be granted them, then perhaps a system could be developed for gorillas as well-selected gorillas such as Grodd.

The moral considerations over the choice of test subjects meant little concern to Grodd. What Grodd did object to was being excluded from such a promising endeavor. When Grodd offered to lend his considerable genius to aid in these secret projects, he was refused. Grodd requested a second time, insisting that it was necessary-an opportunity that could not be missed. Solovar feigned shock and horror at the insinuation that such experiments were being conducted, and then promptly exiled Grodd when he threatened to expose the king's secret. It was apparent that Solovar wanted the results of such experiments to remain his alone, and, with Grodd gone, his "Great Work" could continue; secret and unimpeded.

It would be years before Grodd gained a measure of vengeance for the slight. First he perfected a prototype of the formula that Scarecrow had been feverishly working on and used it to poison the airs of Gorilla City. Then, accompanied by the Legion, he installed Brainic's device that emitted a ray that could take control of every gorilla brain in a thousand mile radius. For three days, Grodd has achieved his great ambition: he ruled Gorilla City.

For the brief time that he and the Legion controlled the city, Grodd found the hidden graves and the infant skeletons contained there in. He recalled their swollen craniums and the way their features had atrophied as their skulls deformed to contain their grotesque brains. He suspected such a phenomena occurred when the test subjects had been subjected to the craft's strange radiation, and speculated that they were side effects of the elusive psychic powers that humankind had sometimes experienced but had never been able to control. The experiments must have been inconclusive. Despite their best efforts, the inhabitants of Gorilla City couldn't even know if such abilities even existed, let alone if they could be developed among their own kind. He would have attempted to remove their skulls and have their brains linked into a device with a spiderweb of wires while the victims still lived and attempt to merge them into a single psionic slave. Other options were gene splicing, massaging of the brain, and perhaps even implanting the tissues from various other species into the probable psionic centers of the human brain.

Despite the scheme's failure and Gorilla City eventually freed from his control, Grodd still gained a cathartic release from the revelation that Solovar was not as noble as his subjects, or his thrice-accursed ally; the Flash, thought.

The conveyor. So close. Tantalizingly close. He concentrated on it, using all of his formidable will.

He felt strangely hot and cold at the same time. He could even feel his blood surging through the tight walls of his veins and arteries. His stomach tightened. A pressure built behind his eyes, and he breathed raggedly.

_Easy now..._

It felt as if every bone and muscle in his body ached. His chest was on fire, but he could feel an aching cold seep into his bones as this new and unknown power flowed through him like the onset of fever. He received images as faint and distorted as reflections on the wind-rippled surface of a pond, but they weren't conjurations of his own mind. He knew was receiving the remnants of thoughts, impressions in the floor beneath him, odd resonances in the air. Under his touch, the passageway's floor seemed to pulse in every direction at once, compressing and contracting in unfeasible ways, moving as stone was never meant to move.

Smiling, he knew that by achieving this small success, he had the power that he had coveted for so long.

In truth, he had not developed this ability, Grodd suspected that he had them all along. His abnormal strength was mostly physical, but it was enhanced by a latent psionic ability; perhaps a form of localized, tactile telekinesis or a subconscious manipulation of his own central nervous system. All his life he had yet to comprehend this, and his physical strength obviated the need to look for other ways to fight. As such he had never realized his true potential.

He realized it now. He was now the first totally free gorilla in the brief history of his species. Psychic strength, the strength of the mind, was virtually beyond limit, the pure psionic power to read thoughts and uncover the secrets, to control others, to rule a world and destroy what he could not rule. Despite the agony in his body, Grodd very much desired to laugh. His breathing was difficult, partly because of the extent of his injury, but largely due to the dark dreams of power that filled him with a megalomaniacal excitement. Gorilla City would fall beneath his psionic might and _Homo sapien_ would be displaced from being the dominant species once he returned to his home-world.

His mind seethed. Ideas and images boiled to the surface by the hundred, by the thousands; extraordinary new ideas, disturbing images, coming and going almost too swiftly to be grasped.

A vision came to him then.

He saw himself seated upon a granite throne. He wore the crimson and gold costume of the Flash as his sheltering cloak, still wet with fresh bloodstains. He imagined his glorious return to the environs of Gorilla City and the atrocities he would inflict on his former countrymen. He would begin with small things: read a few minds, scan their memories and bring out their fears. He would injure a few with mental blasts, and perhaps kill some with his great strength before finally forcing them all to worship him and carry out his designs. They would then refashion their city into a fortress for the coming war with humankind.

Yes. The humans deserved to be ruled over and punished, those swarming multitudes. In their self-absorption, they assumed that the world had been made for them, for their kind and its comfort, and they had overrun it. But the gorilla was evolution's favorite, not them. They would have to be profoundly humbled, and their numbers reduced. If any resisted he would use his great strength and powers to kill them; their just reward.

Yes, the future would be glorious, but it would only be so after his escape.

Grodd focused all his attention on the conveyor, marshaled all his remaining strength for the task of getting hold of it, and willed himself to ignore the terrible pain that crippled him, to overcome the paralyzing shock of the brutal beating that he had endured. He shook his head and the effort seemed almost too much; he felt giddy with fatigue. The pounding blood vessels in his head felt as if they were about to burst.

The conveyor remained where it had always been.

Despite his new-found talent, telekinesis was apparently not within his repertoire of psionic abilities. He could no more make the conveyor move than he could fly. This shortcoming irritated Grodd, but he silently hoped that his ability in this regard would improve with time; he longed to hear the Flash's pleas before he was reduced to his base elements by a seething blast of telekinetic energy.

His arm responded shakily. His hand clenched into a fist, then sprang open, then reached out. His trembling fingers nearly touched the metal edge of the conveyor. He felt new strength coursing through him and though the pain still nabbed at him, he was able to fight against the sensation, was able to rise from the floor and stagger towards the conveyor and grasp it.

His fingers closed on empty air.

Gone...

_Illusion!_

Grodd's momentary euphoria turned once more to anger. He should have suspected such treachery here. Luthor informed him of such tricks at the meeting. He closed his hand into a fist and struck the stone floor, producing deep cracks.

He then became aware of something else in the air. He sucked in breath; the air seemed infinitely cooler than it had been moments earlier. He felt himself tremble and his eyes tried to drink in the darkness, to absorb it and see what lay beyond. Was there a shadow darker than the rest? Something moved and his eyes locked on to it. But he was mistaken; he edged closer and there was nothing hiding there, no person, no creature.

He was then struck, like being hit by a charging beast, plummeting him across the length of the darkened chamber. Immediately, a handful of his fur was seized by grasping fingers, at the crown of his head, twisted and pulled hard.

He clawed at the hand that held him, but ineffectively because something metallic protected it. A glove perhaps. The hand was relentless and strong. The being it belonged to it lightning fast.

His fur should already have come out by the roots. The pain was excruciating. His vision blurred. The fur would come out in a great handful. The fur would come out, and he would be free.

But the fur didn't, and he wasn't. The pain quickly grew so intense that the roots of his fur seemed to extend through the flesh of his face-for his face hurt as well, stung as if flame had seared it-and seemed to extend also into his shoulders and arms, for as the tenacious roots came free, so did the strength in those muscles.

His face was slammed against the floor, and Grodd felt something in his face break, and blood poured onto the floor. He wanted to cry out but it was impossible, he couldn't get enough air. He felt himself hauled up and thrown against a wall, and then with a choking noise, he fell, landing on his side and drawing up his legs, bending forward at the neck until he had contracted to a fetal pose, eyes closed, body shivering uncontrollably. He felt the cold stone floor against his cheek.

Grodd tried to rise but found he couldn't; an invisible force seemed to be holding him there. The weight of his own body had suddenly become barely bearable. Hands pushing against the smooth surface, he fought to keep from being crushed all the way to the floor. He opened his mouth to speak but no sound came. The sudden oppression in the room had become an increasing pressure, weighing down on him like a physical force.

And it seemed as though someone were standing over him while wondering, idly, casually, just how and when to finish him off.

An image formed in his mind, details came to light: metal shoes silently tapping against the stone floor, black cloth encasing muscular legs and torso, all the way up to the head. Which, of course, had no face.

He could not see the shine of teeth. There was no hump of a nose. There were no eyes, but it could still see him. The apparition would have shocked a normal man into insensibility, but do Grodd it merely brought hatred and frustrated rage.

Lastly, Grodd heard a voice.

_"Child's games!"_

Despite the English, the voice was eerie, thin, rasped like the voice of a man stricken with some disease of the vocal cords. The words had not been spoken, not heard in his ears, they had impressed themselves in his mind without need for verbalization.

The floor then fell away beneath his feet, and Grodd found himself floating free, hanging like a feather on air.

Eyes shut tight, Grodd flinched as a mental thrust tore through his brain. Doing everything possible to resist, he quickly realized there was nothing he could do. Someone was examining him in his thoughts, close. No, there were two that scanned him-distinct but unrelated.

Suddenly, from nowhere, rose a silent and engulfing deluge of duration and motion and substance, a newborn current of actuality, sweeping him along violently as it sought his limits.

A brilliant light flared to life directly above, a light of warmth and brilliance rolled back upon itself the blackness that had been overhead. His vision shivered, his eyes blinded by the flood of light. It brought more pain to the front of his skull.

Vertigo and the agony of his wounds overtook his senses and he blacked out.

He heard the roar of waters, already intense and growing louder. Closer. A low gurgle of air-bubbles.

Everything was red. A crystalline hue.

He blinked. The red remained.

All things were shades of red, myriad shades of red.

Was he floating in his own blood?

"Do not be afraid." A familiar voice bubbled up from the reddening depths. "Ignorance and darkness are the only things to fear. You are leaving those things behind. You are entering a world of knowledge and light."

He could not speak. Could not respond. He could only drift in the liquid.

"You have such potential within you, Grodd. And you never knew it. To reshape the psyche is a lengthy and somewhat painful process, but it can be done."

Grodd squinted to see saw his own reflection in the red walls that surrounded him in his tank. Cords of metal entered into precise points on his skull, Medusa-like. He floated in red saline liquid, a breathing apparatus coiled around his mouth.

Just at the edge of vision he saw what looked like a hollow glass drill passing into the side of his skull, where it paused in making another small incision. Attached to the drill were lengths of thin tubing for supplying or draining organic fluids, as might be required, and other instruments for inserting various artificial devices.

Grodd then heard something speak within his mind. Its message was not in words but rather images that were at once translatable: an infinite staircase that twisted back upon itself.

For some inexplicable reason this concept filled Grodd with panic and untold dread. He wanted to thrash and break his bonds to escape this image, mundane as it was. He wanted the memory of the staircase to fade, to leave his mind, but it remained.

He was then subjected to more images more detailed than the first one had been, each concept an impossible situation or concept, a paradox: a common house cat that ate itself, even its own mouth. He saw an infinity symbol break to become twin serpents, and was filled with horror at the implications of that separation. He saw the physical image of a negative integer-a dreadful sucking void that demanded to be filled, and he was tormented by the undoing of the physical universe to its hunger. Each image invoked a hurricane of dreadful thoughts and feelings associated with punishment and guilt. He felt his existence, that in the face of these impossibilities, would become meaningless, and then less than nothing.

And then the periods of unconsciousness between the images were filled with dreams. The _same_ dream. Over and over again, like a film loop. Each time, he woke before the dream was finished, but each time it progressed farther than it had previously, though upon awakening he could never recall exactly what the dream was. He was aware that there was some meaning in the dream, some solution to the mystery, some racial memory, and he almost welcomed the darkness between the images, when he could continue with it.

When his brain was unable to cope with the sensory overload it was failing to process, he retreated into the darkness of unconsciousness, finding peace for at least a few brief minutes where the threads of his sanity didn't unravel in the face of distorted reality. But that was a futile defense. Unconscious, he was be safe from the drilling, from the probing, and from the images. When he awoke again, it would start all over again.

During these dreams, his mind was transported to realms of insane angles and impossible geometry, where perspectives were lies and distance non-existent. Grodd felt unclean and ill just through the mere act of visualizing them. His sense of normality was turned upside down and the natural order of the universe was overthrown in these new, terrifying visions of distorted reality. He saw what he could only described as psychic mutilation or deformity, not in anyway physical but existent nonetheless.

And so he was determined to remain conscious and aware, trying to mute and protect his thoughts while simultaneously striving, searching for a way to fight back. Restrained in both body and mind, he found himself wilting under the relentless assault of the images. He wanted this to stop. He didn't want darkness, not images, nor dreams. He wanted nothing except to go to sleep, a dreamless, endless sleep.

Finally, the images ceased and the sensations of overwhelming dread ended with them.

Next Grodd heard a dark voice arising from the crimson depths to speak three words:

_"Now see _me_!"_

Grodd's sight was then filled with horrible light.

* * *

He was the protective cloak of his world. He was its atmosphere. He contained all the elements that could not exist on its surface.

He stirred the air with his passage, making the thunder to go mute and the lightning to lose its ferocity. The wind babbled to him. He responded by muttering lines from the Bushido code, the wind seemed to hear and obey him.

He caused the air to grow heavy around him, to pile and pile on dark layer after dark layer, to compress into the small volume of space. Then, gently nudging it with his will, he began to shuffle the layers, mixing and shuffling, making the wind ever stronger. Still, he contained it.

In time he would bring rain to the desolate deserts so the crops and other food-staples could flourish and this world's multitudes could be fed. It was within his power also to tame destructive occurrences in the atmosphere, to tame the great storms, leading them away from coastal settlements that could be threatened by their force.

Only a few years before he had been school teacher in Osaka, Japan. He taught history to his students and attempted to impress upon them the importance of the traditions of their country's past.

One night, he looked up into a sky that was the most beautiful shade of black he had ever seen. The stars looked like pearls and diamonds, spilled from an infinitely long necklace, bright and unsullied by the light of the setting moon. They seemed close enough to touch. The towering trees around the rim of the dell framed a perfect circle of stars, making their light somehow brighter, as if the configuration of the leafy circle were some sort of lens.

Then, a shaft of eerie red-gold light, as strong as a ladder but clear as water, pierced down between the stars and the man, like heaven's stage light. He felt watched, and more than watched: intimately scrutinized, physically and mentally analyzed, his fullest measure taken in ways unknowable and profound.

He felt physically examined to a cellular level, every filament mapped in the rich braid of his emotions, every turning of his mind from its brightest to its darkest places explored in an instant and understood in finest detail.

Moments passed, and the beam became stronger, firmer and then all the light-a brilliant luminosity brighter than the day, stronger even than lightning, the life of the universe, resolved itself in a flash of radiance around him and he was lifted upwards.

A ripple flickered through the column of light, the subliminal repetition four words, which was spoken by the voice of a man, then a woman, then a man in this language, women in that, over and over in all the languages of humanity, four words: _"He is the one."_

He saw such...things.

He saw the death of old gods and the birth of new ones in a war that wrenched space and matter so violently that a world was torn in half and became two polar opposites who continued their conflict.

He saw as impossibly huge cities were obliterated in the conflict and laboriously rebuilt, whole civilizations swallowed and remade, as a war between the great powers of the cosmos dragged on and on without purpose, without meaning, and without end. A war between darkness and light, between truth and lies, between life and _anti_-life.

Returning to his home-world, he had only to transform to realize the reality of the experience. Finding that he could disperse himself and travel as wind, he knew that he was no longer completely human, he had merely to voice the mystic phrases that were impressed upon his mind to realize that. He was essentially an elemental of the air now, able to turn nearly invisible to others, and command the primal forces of wind and rain.

He flew for the first time then. The city disappeared beneath him, and he went up into the clouds where the blue lightning danced.

For the first time he knew true joy, and at the upper limits of the clouds where the lightning was hottest, he thought the could see the stars.

It was while flying that he then needed a name, one that would remind others of his country's Imperial past and rich traditions: _Samurai._

Now, with the storm over the Atlantic calmed, he flew westward, towards rendezvous in New York with the others.


	17. Sphinx

For many years the Hall was the home, the headquarters, and the future world capital of the Legion of Doom. Now with its vast bulk listing to one side the Hall resembled the discarded helmet of a titan as it rested upon the silvery stage in the chamber that Sinestro had once identified as an arena. Interior panels were peeled back, and heavy structural beams had burst outward, its rivets had popped, the obsidian glass of its ocular windows had split with minute cracks and melted in place, normally indestructible metals had twisted and bent, and in places had shattered completely- all the result of the Hall of Doom's journey through the sea of chaos known as the Bleed.

A soft blue light, almost fluorescent in quality, bathed the arena and within its undulating circle, everything was still, everything was quiet. Above, in the blue light the vaguely organic mechanisms whirred and twitched like a mass of rutting serpents. It was from this mass that large silver tubes attached to the Hall's domed top, joined with it as if in perverse symbiosis. Clusters of hexagonal carbon flowed languidly across the black dome of the Hall's roof. Animated with motion, the diamond shapes prised themselves apart and slotted back together at random like pieces in a child's jigsaw puzzle.

Outside the ring of blue-white light there was only illimitable darkness and silence absolute. The peals of glorious music had ended, and the court of disciples had exited with the conclusion of the battle mere hours before. Gone was the sound of clinking chains and the dry rasp of scales against stone surfaces indicating the movements of ophidian forms. Even the incessant pinging of the time conveyor had fallen silent.

The Hall, like its former owners, were foreign to this place; alien to this universe. And this region of the Multiverse despised the foreign, preferring to change it, to make that which was different to match itself. This plane of existence had a manifest will; a guiding hand, a divine grace. That which existed beyond itself was only chaos waiting to be broken down, destroyed repeatedly, refashioned and imposed with its own grand design.

It would not matter if there was resistance, if there was difficulty, the end would be the same as it always had.

All things could be changed. All things must be changed. All things would be changed.

But before it could continue, before an ideal way to go about changing could be chosen, it needed to be informed, it needed to learn, to poke and probe until all about them was known. Lex Luthor had already provided the Benefactor with much information, and the computerized records found stored aboard Toyman's artificial world had filled many voids, but there was still more to investigate, much to learn.

It was for this reason that no secrets remained within the Hall's plundered archives, and the shelves of its laboratories and the vaults of its hold were emptied by unliving hands of circuits and glass. Only the manta-shaped hydrofoil avoided this fate only by its large size, though even this would eventually be removed.

Those same hands that had ransacked the Hall now grasped tools of strange design and applied them to its hull, generating temperatures high enough to melt even the Hall's unique alloy.

Neither purely organic or wholly mechanical the Servitors were. Gravity could not hold them and in their work, the multi-limbed beings silently floated from one section to another with eerie grace. The only sound was gnashing of teeth in their many mouths, and the occasional violent screech as they tore sections of silver floor and welded the pieces to the building's surface using molecular bonding techniques that would have awed any scientifically-minded individual from another universe. Where the inner circuitry of the Hall was exposed and wiring severed, they dutifully fused the strands back together. When components were burned out and damaged beyond repair, they gave up parts of themselves for replacement.

The structure would soon be many times its original size and be a worthy staging ground for what was to be accomplished in the future.

After its obsidian eyes were removed, they could attach the sensory array and the artillery pieces to the empty sockets. The manipulatory mechanisms attached to the Hall's undercarriage would come much later, but the tentacles themselves were already constructed. There was also the Chambers of Life, the Embryo Vats, the Slave Computation Cluster, and the Tesseract Enabler to be installed within.

So much to accomplish, and merely a year to do so.

For hours they had labored on their master's behalf, no emotion whatsoever interfered with their productivity. They exchanged not a single word as they worked, yet they did not duplicate one another's efforts. Neither did they at any time crowd one another. All of their myriad eyes stared, haphazardly positioned around each of their bodies; lacking lids they never closed, never wavered from their work.

Until now.

As if an unspoken command had been issued, as if in response to a summoning trumpet that only they could hear, the bio-mechanical servitors stopped in a way that suggested hesitation. Each of their many eyes turned in a single direction-towards the entrance ramp of the Hall of Doom. Within their head and bodies glands oozed enzymes, circuits were completed, and gearwheels turned.

Something that was small and out of place had attracted their attention.

Instantly five of their number retracted their heat-expulsion devices and stood up from their labors.

In assembled ranks the five servitors shambled up the ramp, marching towards the sound of a fluttering heart and weak breath. They were silent, but they were not graceful. They moved like stumbling newborns, supporting each other, their misshapen heads close as if sharing a secret as they walked through the Hall's gleaming metal corridors.

* * *

Edward Nigma was sprawled forward upon the conference table, arms spread as if griping the edge, his deck of tarot cards lay scattered on the floor around his feet. He was still unconscious from the blow he had sustained from the initial jolt of the trans-dimensional voyage. He had been unconscious through the meeting with the Benefactor, was not present with the battle between the Legion and the disciples, and he would remain in such a state for many hours more.

He murmured wordlessly as he slept but forlornly, mewled, and even wept, as if adrift in a soft sad dream. Beneath his purple, domino-style mask his eyes flickered back and forth in REM sleep. A blood sweat droplet from the concussion he suffered trickled down the back of his neck.

The servitors entered calmly, deliberately, without hurry. Deeply subdued, Nigma remained serene, not hearing them enter and was unaware. A spasm of REM seized him for a few seconds, but it was unrelated to this new threat.

In a voice so tearful and weary that the last word fell away in a moan, Edward Nigma uttered one word:

_"Father..."_

Completely lost in the veils of unconsciousness, Nigma did not stir when the hand of luminous flesh and gleaming circuitry approached his face.

* * *

Outside the Hall, a servitor sat hunched over one of the robot doubles of the Legion's foes. It had been removed from its alcove and laid out on the floor of the arena. The many eyes that gazed down on the robot were large, lidless, bulging from the flesh and the skin as if barely contained; the pupils were cloudy, a fine membrane coating them, and the area around them that should have been white was yellow and patchworked with tiny veins. The servitor ran its hands over the artificial face designed to resemble that other universe's greatest champion. It did so gently, almost tenderly. The face and costume seemed to elicit interest in the being, almost as if it were admiring the inert robot.

The silence was so heavy that it had weight. The silence of expectation, of revelation.

It was a silence that only ended when a scream pierced the air, coming from within the interior of the rapidly-changing Hall of Doom.


	18. Justice, Truth and All That Comes After

However expected, humankind will always be unprepared when gods deign to walk among them.

Though not divine in even the loosest definition of the word, still their exploits were the stuff of legend to all those who lived on Earth. Even in the deepest ocean trench or the gleaming halls of moon-bases on the lifeless deserts of the Moon, and beyond, all of humanity knew them and acknowledged their exalted uniqueness.

In the dim reaches of the past, Romans and Britons had drawn images of their gaily-colored visages, and in the distant future, leotarded transhumans, living in domed cities, recounted on holographic displays the epic of how they were saved from enslavement by these legends from the distant past.

And such was true not only in part of the universe, but also on worlds circling suns so far from Earth that the very galaxies of which they were members were invisible to the naked eye.

Wherever human foot had tread-and indeed on worlds where no human being had ever set foot but where the spark of awareness blazed in strange alien forms, the Justice League was known.

* * *

Manhattan, New York.

The sprawling United Nations complex with its twenty acres of modernistic buildings, statues and sculptures, and reception gardens, overlooked the East River. The towering tombstone-like Secretariat Building dominated the complex, its narrow end-walls rising like sheer cliffs of white. But the true purpose of the organization wasn't to build impressive buildings, magnificent statues or restful gardens, it was for peace and human dignity, as agreed to by more than 150 nations.

The sky above it would normally be a brilliant blue canvas that stretched out to the horizon without a trace of cloud, if not for the city's thin layer of smog from congested automobiles and New Jerseys' factories; a blue sky representing hope and possibility for change.

Now, after recent events, the blue skies over New York weren't as hopeful. This was not Metropolis, not Gotham, or Coast or Gateway or Keystone City. This city had no superheroes to call it home, and so an aura of distrust was still very much present, as well as fear for their villainous counterparts. _They_ always came from the skies; the major players, the more powerful of miraculous forces. The city's citizens often looked up, wondering what new villain or alien force would soon come from those blue depths to menace them.

The World Trade Center's South Tower had just recently been restored to its place after being briefly animated by a stray eldritch bolt from the Monolith of Evil on that dreadful day not so long ago. Soon after recently acquiring the potent, wish-granting artifact, their next act had been to animate various giant monsters from the bay. The distress caused by that day was burned like a scar into the psyche of the city's people. The city had still not fully recovered from the blackout only two years before, and the cause of that incident and the resulting riot had still not been determined, though metahuman involvement was suspected.

The memory of that day still hung over the city, and there was an aura of discord and fear of when the Legion would again be seen, and what new tricks they would conjure to bring the world with their grasp. If not the Legion of Doom then perhaps Danial Corwin, the so-called _Dinosoid_, would appear in the skies leading at the head of a squadron of pterosaurs to begin a new era of saurian dominion with New York the first target. If not Corwin, then another mad scientist with a doomsday device planning on carving out the city's heart. Vampirius could be stalking the streets, thirsty for the blood and souls of its citizens. Mirror Master could be attempting to steal or assassinate by stepping around the three dimensional spaces that normals lived. Perhaps today Mxyzptlk would choose this time to turn the sky and the earth upside down, or otherwise overturn the natural laws of this limited 3-dimensional world with the merest city's popularity on the world stage would make it a prime target for such foes and today was as good as any to strike.

But today this was not that day. This was the day of another group of costumed super-beings, and it was because of them that the citizens of this city-this world-would never need fear that _other_ day of days.

This was the hour and the day and the month and the year for which both parties had awaited for so long, what the people had yearned for and talked of often: an age of miracles. A few more years and it would be a new decade, a better world. A time when the miraculous and the mundane joined hands to the benefit of both, a promise of aid, of reconciliation of the super-powered and the mortals beneath them.

The Brooklyn shipyards were already bustling with activity, as tugboats led massive tankers to and from the docks. New Jersey was also off to an early start, its highways already beginning to clog with traffic bound for the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels, and, through them, into Manhattan. Fortunately for today's new arrivals, their mode of conveyance wasn't by river-barge or automobile. No, _they_ would come though an entirely different means of transportation, and thus would not be delayed.

A tiny spot of color appeared against the blueness of the distant skies and drew nearer to the earth, to this one city, getting larger and larger, pushing away the haze and lighting the plaza like the noonday sun, a sun that projected all the colors of the rainbow.

Arms outstretched to the sides as if in benediction, both flaps of his cape flaring back in the breeze like red wings; the cloth shimmered luxuriously in the sunlight, rippling subtly like vertical pools of water, Superman hovered; the emerald light contrasting with the blue, yellow and red of his costume.

He was soon joined by several others who came materializing out of the emerald glow. From his left a whirlwind descended and quickly solidified to become a muscular, Asian man in gold and green armor, his dark hair tied up in the traditional topknot style of the samurai of old, his legs and lower torso caught up in a miniature tornado. From his right came a mass of golden electricity; a roiling, chaotic entanglement of vortices, that came to together to form an athletic black man dressed in yellow and ebony, his masked eyes and gloved hands crackling with the barely restrained lightning that was his substance as well as his namesake.

The only woman in the assemblage floated next to Superman on his lower right, riding the drafts of air with masterful skill. Dressed in star-spangled cloth, a golden lasso strapped to her side. She was an idealized statue of a woman brought to life; a goddess in a Renaissance allegorical painting: her face perfect in its symmetry with large, wide-set dark eyes rimmed with long black lashes. Her jawline chiseled and firm, nose prominent; Roman and godly. She brimmed with confidence rather than the characteristic docility.

At her right she was accompanied a literal angel; muscular golden wings, clad in a gilded harness and holding a magnificent mace of unique alien alloy that glittered in the emerald light. His mask that of a fierce bird of prey, beak curved in a sharp hook, the rest of his body a man in his physical prime. He hovered close to the star-spangled woman like a deadly sentinel, protective.

Lowest of all was a lean man in a crimson and gold costume emblazoned with symbols of lightning, his form shimmering with strobed after-images, his electromagnetic footsteps charging the different elements in the atmosphere, briefly pulling them together to form "stepping stones" which slowly vanished from sight with an oscillating fire after he passed over them.

Another man, as tall as a Superman and clad in a green, black and white costume descended with him on his left, his temples distinguished with a touch of premature gray. The bright emerald glow emanated from his form like a distant green sun dropping slowly. The ring on the man's right hand projected a gleaming green platform of contained force upon which two others stood: a brawny native-american man dressed in a tan vest and pants, and a masked teenager in green and yellow tights; a yellow cape about his shoulders.

In previous ages, men would have mistaken them for angels, or gods, or Zodialogical figures torn from a new night sky which now were gloriously descending to the earth with arms outstretched.

In these modern times they were called _heroes_.

Even the most jaded of New York's citizens felt a tinge of awe at the sight of them as they arrived in the greatest city on Earth, a city that they could have destroyed in a day, or an hour so great was their power. One expected to hear glorious heaven arias to accompany their descent from the skies. It was one thing to read of them saving the world in a newspaper, or watch an animated reenactment of their numerous victories on the television. It was quite another to see them in person, to see people who could effortlessly defy gravity, to soar in the sky under their own power, their very existence reminding one of just how earthbound one truly was, and then one realizes that flight was the least of their abilities. They re-defined and made one question just what was possible simply by existing.

They did not cry out in gleeful joy at the display of their flight, did not cartwheel in the skies, nor did they meet the crowd's gaze, for these super-beings were confident in their power, in the glory that was their right and their due. Their faces were solemn masks as they seized this day and savored it only inwardly.

Nine descended from the sky, and the tenth of their ranks rose from the water.

Out in the bay vague, nebulous forms filled the currents; some were dark, others sickly luminescent. They massed together, squirming spasmodically, tendril-like appendages waving in the currents, occupying it as though the content was not water but moving, liquid beings.

Something was rising from the depths of the waters. And then it was apparent that they were several things. First it was a patch that shimmered luminescent blue as a school of deep-sea, bio-luminescent jellyfish made their way to the surface. Then they were followed by a group of softly-glowing fish; horrid creatures with bulbous, staring eyes and teeth like clusters of white knives. Next rose cyclopean squid, rare beasts unknown to lighter depths whose coats were lambent with many colors. Their tentacles spread outward for many meters to either side of their vast bodies; their single eyes squinting against the brightness, unused to it. The whales came next, ascending and blowing torrents of water from their blowholes in celebration, water running off their immense backs as they surfaced. The blond man dressed in golden scale was the last to emerge, hair damp, plastered shiny and flat against his scalp and forehead, and droplets of water stippled the gilded scales of his costume. The teeming schools, the solitary hunters, the phosphorescent denizens of the deep, leviathan and kraken; together, all the creatures of the deep formed bridge of arched necks, tentacles and vertebrate along which Aquaman walked. As he stepped upon the dry land, he left behind a river that seemed pulsingly alive with sparkling blue light, electrically active, radiant and throbbingly, seeming brilliantly vital.

They descended to the steps of the one of the most recognizable structures in the world: the Secretariat Building of the United Nations where a crowd had already gathered. There was a swirl of blue cape, and Batman simply appeared on the right of the entrance, looking up to greet the others as they came down, standing crouched like a predatory force; a primal demon that fought for justice and goodness.

Convened at last, the eleven members of the Justice League stood gazing out upon the crowd. Superman turned his head to one side and then the other way as did Wonderwoman, who mouthed the word "Where?" The others seemed just as expectant, turning their own heads toward the sky and around the plaza.

The plaza was currently off limits to the general public for the day. An iron fence surrounded it and guards checked for PRESS identification cards at all the gates from the crowd that had gathered from all over the city and the world. There had been portents all year, but today was to be the culmination. The whole event was to be televised nationwide, and relayed by satellite to other countries. The cameras were already on the scene. Outside the fence the crowd massed close, perhaps hoping they might be able to touch one of them or hoping that one of the heroes might turn his or her head toward them and look upon them, so they could say years hence that they had been here on this historic day and that one of these beings had met their eyes and knew them and smiled.

After a few moments of bewilderment, the eleven superheroes, shoulder to shoulder, walked towards the great revolving doors that marked the entrance to this towering edifice of the UN building.

The Hall of General Assembly was filled to capacity, delegates from 152 nations present. There were many heads of state there as well, to hear the one called Superman give his speech, as well as just be seen in their presence. The visitor's gallery was closed to the public to make room for other dignitaries as well as heads of various agencies of the UN who had been given priority. The press gallery was packed with reporters and staff members of many of the UN's offices filled the Hall's end and overflowed the aisles.

After entering, the eleven walked across the chamber's length with the sound of clapping applause accompanying them.

Near the lectern stood the Secretary-General who was a tall, handsome man in his mid-fifties with a full beard and an aura of confidence about him. Originally a prime minister of Greece and a long-time contact of the Justice League after since the restoration of Athens's Parthenon during the "Giants of Doom" incident a few years before.

He gave Superman an ingratiating smile and offered his hand, saying "Superman, you have returned so soon to us. And you've brought the rest of the Justice League. May you be made welcome here, though I sense that you are here to request something." The Secretary-General paused and smiled, saying "Am I correct in that assumption?"

Superman smiled in reply and said "Mr. Secretary-General, the Justice League and I humbly request permission to address the General Assembly."

The Secretary-General gestured to the assembled representatives. "You will require a sponsor from one of our delegates," he said.

All of the delegates raised their hands in seemingly one single movement.

"You may proceed," the Secretary said and pointed to towards the lectern.

Getting to the lectern Superman surveyed his audience and seemed to achieve the impossible by establishing eye contact with all the hundreds at once, and making each seem like an individual worthy of his personal attention.

There was something indefinable to him-something in the way Superman walked to the center of the chamber, as though he owned it, the confidence he wore like his cape, as though he understood that this gathering was just for him, and that it was his right and due.

Clearing his throat, a sound that echoed and carried to the furthest corners of the great chamber, Superman opened his mouth to speak.

* * *

This were their moment; the chance to truly bring about changes in this world; to make it better and make those better changes last. He should have joined them on the world's stage. He really should have been present with them.

Instead he had arrived at the Hall of Justice in a whirl of red cape, instantly transported to this place through the power of magic and a prayer to a forgotten deity. He strode through shafts of light coming down through panels cut in the ceiling, light that shone upon a floor made from a bright granite that had been polished.

He would not miss being a witness to it. Behind him the omnipresent monitors in the Hall of Justice all played the same footage: Superman's face filled the screens: classically handsome, square-jawed, with blue eyes and dark hair with a split curl that hung over his forehead, his smile warm and generous.

Kal-El was an eloquent speaker, and he had the courage to speak.. A discerning leader. Each word was the tolling of the bell, he told himself, each word a candle's flame signifying dignity and hope. The millions starving, the millions enslaved. His words spoke out for them, and spoke out for the truth. He would lead them to what was best for this world; he was more certain about this anything.

El Dorado was still amazed that he had come so far, that he was a part of this, that the life he had been given was going to be part of this grand and miraculous purpose. He fought off a wave of doubt and confusion, he looked into his very center, at his faith. The lad still felt as an outsider, alone among the League, with the possible exception of Wonder Woman and Samurai, he gained his powers solely through the use of magic. On some level El Dorado knew that he would never be completely accepted for this reason due to Superman's stated vulnerability to it. The man El Dorado respected most in the world had nothing to fear from him, but he sensed the apprehension nonetheless from Superman. If it took years for El Dorado to earn their trust in the years ahead, it was a small price to pay to stand at his side in the coming years of this new era..

El Dorado had wanted to be there, to watch him speak in person. Even to see him on the broadcast jolted him, filled him with awe. He was aware of an immediate and consuming loyalty to Ka-El, a loyalty that, at least for the moment, dominated and controlled him. He was able to accept this, because his driven heart was filled with a sure sense of purpose, of right. There was something very important taking place, perhaps the most important thing this age has seen.

He should have been there standing with the others, but he had to know. He was trespassing, only so recently sworn in as a full-time member, and El Dorado doubted that he would be allowed this far, which was why he had chosen this moment to come when the others would be away. As a member he probably had access to this room. He didn't think to ask if that access extended to the room's_ contents._ What he was about to do was presumptuous at best, and a violation at worst. One thing was certain: if his intrusion was known he would be removed from the League's roster. It was for this reason that his secrecy was necessary. A valid excuse for his absence at the UN was already prepared in his mind.

The Justice League never threw anything away and this chamber that took up an entire floor of the Hall was where everything from their exploits were kept. There was rumors that other such collections existed in the lairs of Superman, Batman and others. To either side were rooms containing all manner of wonders-an incalculably valuable physical record of the whole of the League's history set upon mantels, on shelves on pedestals and tables. Each turn presented El Dorado with some exquisite antiquity, priceless sculpture or famous artifact, complete with accounts of its origins. The rooms were a showcase only, full of history, but oddly devoid of spirit, a separateness of each item, the lack of relationship to those nearby, every trophy, every device or artifact was an isolated entity in itself, set-pieces among other set-pieces.

Strangely, there was no security. El Dorado had expected that such a place would have flawless automated defenses, alarms and steel traps, and extensive facilities for the inventory and study of these incredible artifacts. Instead this chamber resembled the floor room of any museum in any major city. There was not even a simple security camera in view. Such an observation meant little. This was the Hall of Justice and every nook or cranny could conceal a countermeasure or a scrying device. Inwardly, he vowed to be cautious as possible.

His cape fluttered behind him like the robes of a scholar while he glanced at the displays to the left and right of him. He passed a large pyramidal piece of jet black rock set upon a granite pedestal and stopped. Upon close examination all lines and angles of the rock all appeared to be subtly wrong; seeming to lean in three or four different directions all at once. Parts of the onyx sagged in some places and bulged oddly in others. He sensed that it was a powerful object, and knew that whoever held it possessed power incarnate, bestowed upon the holder by greater entities. One more sign that he stood astride the two worlds, one foot in the ordinary plane of ordinary men and one foot in the higher realm.

Still it was a dark thing, a thing not meant for mortal hands even if it could be wielded safely by them. The temptations to use its power would be too great, and to do so would put the wielder at risk of the Monolith using him instead of the other way around. The Justice League did not know where it had originally come from other than having been pulled from the molten core of the planet itself by the Legion. The villains blocked out the sun with its power, which to El Dorado was not only an act of insanity, but also the most hideous of blasphemies. It was unthinkable that the light of Inti was subject to this artifact of darkest evil.

_"Sonai,"_ he whispered, a curse. He walked past the Monolith without suppressing his shudder.

He wanted to spend the whole day examining each and every item on display. Not only for their innate significance but to to immerse himself in the League's history, to know all the fine nuances and details of their past adventures so he might better understand this incredible group that he was now part of. But the speech would not last long. El Dorado had to be in and out within the hour. Time for only one item: the only one that he needed to see.

He located the book almost immediately among the other items, seeming to call to him from among all the objects. He strode towards a wooden lectern upon which it rested; which was incongruous for its very normality amongst the rest of this chamber's treasures.

There was only one way to abolish fear and that was through knowledge. It was difficult to be frightened of anything that you understood. But then how many people, if told a particular book had the future written with it, would have the courage to open its pages? He had never before experienced such trepidation.

The book atop the lectern drew him like a fire. Although he felt it would burn him if he touched it, it was so alluring, so tantalizing, he could not help himself. He knew he was moments away from the heart of the mystery, and he had to know what came next, even if it cost him his soul.

All the answers were here. This simple almanac was from several thousands years in the future, and it had been instrumental in defeating the Legion's conquest of an earlier era. Trapped at history's end, they had recovered the almanac from a library's remains and through reading it, they found which era the Legion had settled in, and even read how the Justice League had defeated them. Afterward, the victorious League placed it here among their other trophies, another memento to be stored among the countless others.

The book was constructed with a plain wooden cover, bound along the spine with brown leather. The book's title consisted of just one ornately tooled word: _Almanac._

He opened the antique leather cover tentatively, almost tenderly. In any other circumstance he would have found the book's smell comforting, even homely, though he had hardly read a book since his childhood. He swallowed hard. Although his trepidation was great, his hunger to know was even greater.

He turned a page and he saw the lines of script in shining black ink filling the yellowed whiteness of the paper. There on the first page the subtitle was revealed: _A History of Earth._ In truth, it was more than that-it was the complete history of the future. The book was divided into several chapters, each specializing in a section of the next two thousand years: future historical periods fastidiously kept.

El Dorado flicked back and forth through its yellowed brittle pages, glancing at them over and over again. Despite his rusty grasp of English, he found himself paging through it. Dates passed before his vision that lay still in the future.

And finally he came to the date of next year.

_1980._

The printed title of the chapter alone seemed to exude a dark energy that drew his attention.

He read the words, sometimes he thought he understood them; at others he was at a loss.

Silence reigned and the broadcast playing in the background was forgotten.

El Dorado stood frozen by shock and perhaps fear. Only the book's pages moved, only the book mattered, and only what was written had any meaning or importance in a world turned to stone.

He stood there for an interminable time as the air seemed to darken around him, his mouth open, trying to keep himself together as he kept reading. The book seemed to have a dark power that he found horribly compelling.

The contents hit him with tremendous force when he had completed but a single paragraph, shocked him as he had never imagined that he could be shocked. Words, just words, but they adequately conveyed the horror, the dreadful loss, the ravages of what was yet to come. Even as the words shocked, disgusted, and sickened him, he couldn't resist looking at one more page, then one more, then another, even as the lines swam before his eyes.

Such hideous _things. _Page after page of them. It was as if he were not reading an ordinary history, but was deep into a forbidden Book of the Damned, in which the savage activities of demon-kind had been meticulously recorded by some hell-born scribe. Why had the historian of tomorrow chosen to write this way? Did he feel obligated to log these outrages, this inventory of wickedness, a sum total adding up to a holocaust as such that the world was too small to contain it? Judging by his word choice, it was surely one of the insane that had set pen to paper to record...

...or perhaps the author had been sane and the time in which he lived was mad. Even the ordinary and mundane documentation had dark undertones that seemed to penetrate the very pages under his gaze.

A shudder ran through him as he considered damnable passages of text. Like some alien creature lodged within his chest and struggling to be free, his heart beat so wildly that he trembled. What he wanted now more than anything in the entire world was to stop reading, to forget what he had just read, but the truth that the book contained had infected his mind like a contagion and would not be over until he had read the very last tainted word in the chapter dedicated to 1980.

His face was strangely lined when at last he closed the book; his hands trembling, and it was a feat of will to keep them from tearing out at the pages in blind anger, to keep himself from throwing the almanac from him. But the anger soon drained, as by though the act of reading had robbed him of his youth and left him an old man near the end of his life.

El Dorado's head tilted back and he stared into the Hall's high ceiling. Worse than the reading of the words were the sensations that leapt from them. Images of words and events weaved before his eyes, burned into his retinas. He tried to close his mind against them by focusing on the ceiling and the light of the sun shining through, but still the images invaded, and spread like a virulent infection, pushing his rejection of them and all other thoughts aside. He moaned aloud as the visions raged in his imagination and sunk to his knees, his body shaking as if he were wracked by a seizure; then he was on his feet so great was his anxiety that he could not remain still. He held himself on his feet and swallowed bile, reluctant to vomit here.

_They had to be warned, _he frantically thought._ Have to stop what is about to happen. This was not inevitable._

_No._

_Paradox._

Anything irreconcilable and contradicting. He realized then that what he was suggesting was impossible. To know the future would make it impossible to change it.

He alone knew. He alone. And yet there was nothing to be done. The hope was gone. Dead.

The end was almost upon them, and he knew-he _knew-_-there was absolutely nothing that he could do to change it. He could not change the future, he could only play his role in what was to come, a stage actor bound to a tragic script.

His troubled mind was rife with questions._ Why had the others never read the almanac?_ He realized the answer immediately after the question entered his thoughts.

It was because they had faith, faith in the future and confidence in themselves. They had no need of certainty, of _knowing. _And El Dorado, a priest of his order, failed to have that same faith, and now he was trapped. The book had been a cunning lure.

And then there was the last and most important question of all: _To think that _they_ would return and do this to us, to everyone..._

_Why?_

_How could these things happen? How could they be allowed to happen?_

The almanac had given no answer; no clue, only a dry recitation of the history that had not yet occurred.

He turned back to the lectern and the book laid across it, his shock, his anger, his despair, his exhaustion all conspiring to drain him of resolve. Where once the book had been a comforting thing, it now became a mocking, repellent thing-like a priest revealed as a demon, a refreshing drink as bile. The paper of its pages was crisp with edges that looked razor-sharp. The leather of its binding seemed now familiar; as though it wasn't just animal hide, but rather bound from the back of a human.

He then looked down at his hands and saw how the print from the book had transferred to his flesh, a backwards code tattooed on every inch.

_How? How was this possible? _he silently wondered. _What ink did humankind use millennium hence?_

If it was so easy the words would already be smeared, but it was as if the book had chosen him; had marked him for something more. Regardless, his fingers felt contaminated, blighted, diseased by the words that described the loathsome deeds that would occur in the future. The words imprinted upon his flesh remained as a reminder that what he had read was indeed real.

At the sight of his ink-coated fingers El Dorado once again felt anger, a hatred to answer the despair that had provoked it.

El Dorado stared at the book on the lectern with softly glowing eyes and the book was immediately consumed by a red fire. The wood of its resting place was strangely untouched, but within seconds the book was gone, leaving only a faint trace of ash.

The book gone, but he could still hear Superman speaking. Before each word had echoed like the toiling of bell, but now they resounded like a drum, endlessly repeating never stopping like the beat of an army's war drums.

A drum sound that was also a word, repeated over and over.

_Doom!_

He crumbled to his knees, shivering. El Dorado couldn't stop it.

_Doom!_

He couldn't stop thinking of the sound. What was it? Why didn't it stop? What was its meaning?

_Doom!_

Were the pages inked with poison?

No, he decided. No. No poison. It had been much to take in, much to comprehend, and his temples throbbed with the effort of reading a terrible truth, a future that would come to pass. The sound of the drums were merely a symptom of the knowledge he had just learned, and the mental images that the text of the book had given resounded in his imagination, bringing with them the cursed name of what was coming.

Gradually the drum ceased as he realized that its source was internal, but what the sound meant wasn't hallucinatory but rather a truth, a name burned in acid, a title that meant an end to all things he loved. He had allowed the insanity of the writings to influence his own mind.

_Madness. Madness!_

Dimly he then realized his predicament. He recalled how much time must have passed since he had entered and read that accursed tome. The others would soon be finished petitioning the United Nations, and he could not let them find him lying here in this pathetic state. If they did, there would be questions and then they would find the book's remains and then there would be consternation.

He couldn't allow that. They couldn't be allowed know. Too much depended on them not knowing what he knew. At best, they wouldn't believe him or the future event he had read would be impossible to change. In the worst case they would try to change the future and might undo the universe by succeeding.

And foolishly, selfishly, El Dorado feared their judgment more than he feared the judgment of his gods, for his gods were more merciful that the loss he would feel at having violated their trust in him and inadvertently destroying their property. He couldn't face their stares, their questions, their disappointment in him. Their misunderstanding about his possible betrayal would be too much, especially right now.

He needed time to think, to orient himself. He wanted to return to the Andes mountains, to speak with the other priests of his ancient order, to consult with his gods and ask for their guidance. There was so little time left, each moment was drawing closer to that final day when everything would change.

He now knew and there was no more reason to stay. A deep sense of claustrophobia was already coming over him. This room, this Hall, this world was enclosing him-a prison, a tomb waiting to be filled with the corpses that would come. Indeed It was unbearable to stay a moment longer.

Wrapped in his cape as if warding off the arctic chill, he mouthed the special words, his lips barely moved in a whisper that was also a prayer, a prayer for both those that would be lost and for the future of the world itself. El Dorado temporarily slipped the bonds of matter and fled to distant places, leaving only the book's ash in his wake.


	19. Trust

_"Delegates of the United Nations, citizens of America and all nations," _he said in a pleasantly authoritative voice.

* * *

Events were in motion mere moments after the Justice League had arrived in New York to address the world. One of the reporters present in the U.N's press gallery flipped a switch on a waist-mounted pager, and sent a clandestine signal to a low-orbiting communications satellite.

From the point of the view of that satellite the world of heroes and villains was a serene place-like a carefully maintained garden.

The signal was collected and then transmitted, traveling all across the world to a series of relay stations before it was finally received by those for which the transmission was intended: a division of the world's caretakers which were now convening, gathering their members around a table of polished oak in a location deep underground. In that subterranean locale, overhead lamps cast pools of light down onto a wooden conference table, onto the hands of those people assembled to observe this special broadcast. It was a darkened atmosphere that matched the figures' darkening mood.

They called themselves the Secret Department of Investigation, and they lived up to that name; only a handful of people suspected their existence. The SDI was small but infinitely influential. It was composed of military officers, senior members of various international intelligence and law-enforcement groups, as well as defected scientists from the east and west. Its clandestine leadership included over a dozen heads of states (including two U.S. Presidents), several FBI directors and other top foreign policy advisers both within the United States and beyond. Others were men of great wealth, well-bred and in command of international trade. Many members no longer held public positions in governments, but retained many unofficial ties. On the outside most led respectable lives, and they shared their secret affiliations with no one.

While many of their members served in important positions in the United States government, in truth they held themselves accountable to no higher governmental body. They implemented plans without consulting or informing Congress or any other governmental group in the world. Over the decades, by bribery, blackmail, or sheer mutual agreement on ideals, they had built up their organization into a formidable force, a force that would be strong enough to direct public motivation wavering between the extremes toward the group's own aims, goals as mysterious as themselves.

They had gathered many times before to discuss the destiny of nations, the play of wars held in various world theatres, centralized social planning and a stable (and controlled) economy. The use of drugs and various forms of subliminal conditioning to reform and direct the masses, modifying the behavior of criminal personalities as a means of reducing the crime rate. But such grandiose aims were little trifles compared to their major problem: the metahumans, the super-beings, the heroes, (as Dennis Archer would say) the _monsters_...

They did not act directly often. Mostly they were content with placing secret documents into government files, throwing elections in favor of a specific candidate, or blaming innocent individuals with theft or murder. While the superheroes and the super villains were locked in their constant battle, it was this small group of normals humans who truly held the power. For decades they had been subtly altering history, and for decades more they would labor until their plans reached fruition like sown seeds.

* * *

To awaken early came naturally to someone in his profession. Normally he never allowed himself to sleep past six o'clock in the morning, and it was just an hour ago that he had been awakened by the phone call-a phone call whose digital ringing alerted him more keenly to the difference in the rings compared to his regular phones. He knew there was only one agency who would be using that particular phone system in his home.

He had shuffled to the foot of the large bed hurriedly, and turned to pick up the receiver.

"Colonel Wilcox," the caller addressed him and then went on to say, "A car will be arriving at this place of residence within the hour. We ask that you be ready for the meeting when it occurs."

Jonathan Wilcox didn't ask who the caller was. There was no need, and it didn't matter because he would not receive an answer in any case. It was not within his power to decline, not from the organization that sent the summons, the organization that owned Wilcox body and soul.

The meetings had been held in different locations every time, and performed in absolute secrecy. He would not know where he was going, who exactly would be attending the meeting, but he was certain on what the topic of discussion would be.

With the Legion noticeably absent, there was now only one group that needed discussing, and as the sole liaison of the Justice League, Wilcox's presence was required for that discussion.

He quickly rose, and in short order had bathed, eaten, and was now getting dressed.

_"Very soon a new decade will begin, and we stand at a critical juncture in history. It is a time where humanity must choose a future for the better."_

He lived at this base, in these Spartan quarters, even though his position could have granted him a home in the suburbs in the city of his choice. Similarly, his membership with the organization could have provided him with an almost unlimited line of credit, but he was unconcerned with luxuries as long as he was comfortable for the time he spent here. He was safe as well; the windows and doors had complicated electronic devices that substituted for normal locks, and the windows were double paneled, like those of airplanes.

Though his title was colonel, in truth his prodigious military rank was a merely a facade for his true work in the organization who made the awakening phone call.

He had no close relatives, no spouse and there were no other prospects in his life. There was only his duties as a colonel in the United States army, the secret work, and his responsibility to be silent about it.

He had something that no one else in the world could buy, trade or take, and that thing was the trust of the Justice League. In that way Wilcox was indispensable.

* * *

_"We, the Justice League, have come to the unanimous agreement that the world and all its people should truly be changed for the better. A world and a humanity unlike that of the year, or the decade, or the century that came before it...a world of prosperity, of peace and perhaps, even unity."_

* * *

In truth he had been expecting the call, for he had received it before at times like this, and in recent nights he had little sleep so great was the expectation. He was anticipating it not because of any reports of metahuman activity, but because of the lack of such news. It had been several months, almost a full year, since the last endeavor of the Legion of Doom. He had tried to nurse a faint ember of hope that the Legion had done had finally succeeded in blowing themselves all to Hell, or perhaps they had put away their costumes and gadgetry to live normal lives in solitude. If such the latter event had occurred, then Wilcox envied their possible retirement, a luxury that could not be afforded for himself. His work was all-consuming; his position was pivotal and he was irreplaceable. But it was more likely that they were planning something large. Such was the pattern in which the villains operated.

In any case, the organization would rely on him more and more on his feedback from his communications with the Justice League, feedback that he would provide at this meeting just as he had done in the past.

* * *

_"We partially carry the blame and accept the responsibility for the world's problems."_

* * *

Now he looked self-critically into the bathroom's mirror as he made adjustments to his uniform, with the dull, gray morning light struggling through the chilled, curtained windows behind him.

His dark gray uniform was flawless, dress shoes polished to a high sheen. He nearly always wore this uniform; not only because he understood the importance of appearances, but also because it was genuinely how he thought of himself. The uniform also helped to conceal the lightweight protective vest that he wore underneath-a precaution that had saved his life more than once.

At the age of fifty-six, he looked a decade or two older, with grayed temples and whitening mustache. His face was flabby and hard at the same time, that of a working-man's, used to difficulty; bushy eyebrows, stubby nose and small eyes. While he was getting on in years, he was still a stout man, at least, physically. In his heart, he had lived too long, seen much that he would have rather not have seen, known things that no one else had known. Inwardly he hoped that he had not lived in vain, that he had done his life's work well.

Sometimes when he closed his eyes, he saw sculptures...clay things with tentacles...

The doorbell rang.

He brushed the thought away and opened his eyes. Once more he was returned to the present, vented into a mundane world of responsibility that was infinitely preferable to the world that lived in his memories, and while he slept, his dreams. It didn't matter how continually he reminded himself that that period of his life had ended, and was forever done. While his brother was long gone and the madness that tormented him was gone along with his corporeal life, his memory was a relentless tormentor that only oblivion itself would vanquish.

He settled his officer's cap onto his head, feeling himself stand straighter as the doorbell rang a second time. Stepping out of the bathroom, he briefly glanced at the innocuous bookshelf that concealed the emergency communication console that would put him in touch with the Justice League whenever the need arose. A pair of glossy flags honoring the Army and the United States stood on either side of it.

From the study Wilcox moved from the living room to the front door, which he opened, revealing two dark-suited men. Both of them saluted crisply. Wilcox returned the salute perfunctorily.

"Sir," the taller of the two said. "We are here to escort you." The man then indicated a deep blue sedan idling near the curb.

Wilcox gave them a brief nod, satisfied with the efficiency and professionalism displayed. Both of them cultivated an intense, brooding look and a watchful air, the image of the dedicated soldiers. _If only more people in this world had possessed the same... _

He briefly glanced at the blue skies above as if admiring the weather, and then walked with the two men to the sedan. Once inside, Wilcox picked the sealed folder containing his security badge and related materials placed for him on the leather seat.

As he waited for the sedan to reach their destination he reflected more on the circumstances that had led him to this point.

* * *

"_For far too long we have been remiss; inexcusably irresponsible."_

* * *

He was chosen for his extensive knowledge of the costumed super being. Ever since he was a small child, Wilcox had been interested in the mystery men - those masked crime fighters of the 1920's and 1930's. There was something about them that fascinated him, and he did everything he could to find out more about them. Everyone else thought that his obsession would fade as he grew older. Instead, it became more intense. If he wasn't attending classes at West Point, he was looking up newspaper articles about the newest exploits of these miraculous heroes, as well as checking with rumors, half-truths and speculations.

It wasn't until the beginning of World War II that Wilcox's hobby would pay off, and the course of his life would be set forever.

Though some looked at the mystery men as a passing fad, opinions changed when _she_ came, arriving to fight alongside the Allied troops, in the filthy trenches, single-handedly defeating the greatest of Germany's _ubermenschen_.

_Wonder_... he could think of no better name. To see the Amazon Princess was to re-imagine what could be: a woman who could lift over one hundred tons, glide on the currents of air and shrug off ordinary attacks the way as one would brush away a fly. In film reels he saw her fists pulverize the steel of German tanks and her invulnerable golden lasso entangle and down entire Luftwaffe planes.

She was the first, and for the next two decades she would be alone, only to be followed by five other confirmed superhumans two decades later.

The first actual super-powered heroes made him more interested in his hobby and he spent all of his free time on it. With the arrival of these new, truly empowered individuals, the old guard, the powerless mystery men with their gadgets and detective skills either died in action, disappeared or retired. And whatever lingering fascination he had with them was transferred to these super-powered versions.

It was also during this time that the first costumed villains appeared, and it was only on these occasions that we started to feel the ache of despair. It was truly disheartening to know that great power was not limited to the best of humanity, but also gave its miracles to those of aberrant mindset. His fears soon faded every time he witnessed them battle, and saw that the heroes always won, and these villains always lost. It was evidence that the lawful would always stand against the chaotic. That the peaceful would triumph over the violent. The righteous would always prevail against the wicked. It seemed the way of this world.

After the arrival of the villains on the world scene, Wilcox was approached by a man who first claimed to be working from the Pentagon, and he brought on as an expert on the on-going superhuman war. He obeyed orders and studied both sides carefully, reading every report he could get his hands on, watching every second of the all-too-rare film footage of them, and badgering his superiors for the opportunity to meet with them. When he was not on some other assignment he spent his every minute researching them, tracking down leads, and interviewing people who've encountered them at some point. Everything he learned was carefully filed away for later use, though he found himself more attracted to photographs of Wonder-Woman more than any others.

Another four decades would pass and though Wilcox aged considerably, and she never did.

He brushed the thought away as soon as it appeared. Unlike her, he was a mortal, and subject to the failings and eventual death that awaited all his kind.

It would be in the 1960s that Wilcox would be selected to become the liaison for the world's first and only superhero team, as he was the only one with both military training and thorough knowledge of metahumans for such a position.

He was honored to be able to speak with them, to warn these heroes of threats that faced their shared world, even if only over a communications monitor. It was one of the few bright spots in his life to see their respect for him and trust in what he said to them.

It was those moments that he lived for, to know that the extraordinary could be helpful and beneficent.

* * *

"_If this were the world court, then we would be all standing here before you for criminal negligence and offering up a plea of 'guilty.'"_

* * *

After what Wilcox estimated to be half an hour, the sedan turned and then he felt that they were descending a long ramp before finally turning into a large vehicular elevator that gradually descended. After the descent ceased, the sedan moved forward and then parked and Wilcox moved stiffly out of the vehicle into a concrete parking garage. He glanced down at his security badge once more, making certain it was properly in place before exiting the car.

"We're late," one of the dark-suited men said, who mechanically checked the dial on his wristwatch.

"I'm sorry?" Wilcox said.

"The meeting started five minutes ago." the man answered.

Past a guarded entrance, he was greeted by smooth concrete walls where fluorescent lights recessed in the ceiling flickered briefly. Behind those white-washed walls, Wilcox could hear the muted hum of the air conditioning system as he approached the intersection at the end of the corridor.

The colonel knew the deceptive nature of these bland surroundings, having been here at this particular location a handful of times before. They were at least a quarter mile underground; at a facility designed to shield its personnel in the event of a nuclear strike. Beyond those bland concrete walls were the laboratories where new disciplines were honed to perfection and new methods to control, detain and destroy the average metahuman were devised.

All this research was being collected and coordinated by a variant of the GEEC super-computer. Measures had been taken to see that it would never rebel or malfunction as it had done during the '73 incident. Its logic protocols had been simplified. It would never be allowed to take the place of humans, and now it quietly and obediently organized and correlated vast amounts of data gathered from all parts of the globe, in every branch of SDI.

What had happened to the GEEC robots Wilcox had never been told, but knowing what the SDI was capable of it was obvious that those too had been appropriated. The SDI never threw anything away, and used every tool they had available. In his heart of hearts, Wilcox knew that he also one of these tools, but he never allowed himself time to fully articulate this thought.

He owed this organization much, and he would pay the devils their due.

He finally approached a desk placed at the intersection of corridors. A secretary of advanced years, her white hair complemented her impeccable blue dress, turned her discerning attention to him as he approached. Wilcox saw her practiced gaze look over his security badge quickly.

"Jonathon Wilcox," he said, saying what she already knew. "I'm here for the meeting."

"Yes, Colonel," she replied with perfect courtesy. "They are expecting you."

Wilcox moved past her through the doors to the conference room.

Upon entering the large chamber, Wilcox saw the large table in the center of the dimly lit space. Wood paneling decorated the room and gave it false warmth, despite its obvious militaristic austerity. On a far wall, several smaller screens showed footage of cities around the globe: Paris, Rome, Tokyo, Peking, Berlin, New Delhi, London and Metropolis.

* * *

"_But all of you deserve so much more than a hollow apology."_

* * *

The conference room was occupied by two blue-uniformed figures, one female, and three other men in civilian clothes. Their expensive watches, sleeves with high-ranking stripes, indicated their wealth, power, and most of all, a military presence. Their chairs were positioned near the far end of the table that was facing the rear wall where an enormous monitor screen trimmed in gold filled much of the center.

He recognized some of them from previous meetings, and he tried to remember the names and titles of those seated while he waited to be addressed.

There was Sir Dennis Archer of British Air-force Intelligence; the picture of the perfect English gentleman, dark receding hair, thin mustache, a pale face which seemed to carry a permanent scowl. Today he wore a handsome suit and tie that hung perfectly on his wiry, sixty-year old frame. Archer was standing in for the recently deceased Colonel Breen whom normally attended these meetings.

To Archer's immediate left was a handsome, dark-haired young man dressed in an impeccable black Seville-Row suit who must be a consultant. His tanned face was smooth and void of any scars or blemish. He had the face of a movie star, an actor. A smile seemed perpetually on his handsome features, a smile that seemed deceptively polite. Archer vaguely recognized seeing the man before, perhaps on television or in a newspaper.

Across the table, directly in front of Wilcox sat an stout elderly man in his late seventies, General Anthony Corso. A traditional black patch covered his left eye. The faint image of three thin white scars descended from an area beside the eye, drawing lines past his cheek bone. The scars themselves were almost imperceptible, as if what caused them had occurred long ago. The man's mouth was tight and slightly frowning, as if stoically indifferent to pain or pleasure.

To his left sat Nathan Soley from the Department of Defense, a husky, olive-skinned man with dark hair and impatient eyes. And next to him sat a thin balding man with white hair and glasses dressed in a tweed suit. Another aide or consultant, perhaps, though Wilcox also vaguely found this man to be familiar.

The woman was attractive, dark, too young for the sort of position she held in the ranks of the United States Aerospace Command. She gazed at him, her expression composed and without guile. She stood apart from the men seated near a console, her fingers on various controls for the monitors and communication equipment.

The men's usual imperious expressions were spoiled by their obvious curiosity at what was occurring on the monitor screen, stopping until to watch his entrance curiously, almost as though he were gatecrashing an exclusive club. This was not the reception he had expected. For the first time Wilcox felt strangely uncomfortable, out of place.

Dennis Archer leaned forward on the table with his thin arms, staring coldly at him with an expression of restrained suspicion. "Please come forward, Colonel Wilcox."

He did so, and then he stopped his walk forward and just stared, having glimpsed what was on the monitor screen.

A seat was offered and Wilcox took his place in the center of the room, not at the table with the others.

He was numb with shock and almost stumbled as he sat down.

On the screen, Superman was standing in what was clearly the Hall of General Assembly at the United Nations. He was speaking _"In penance for our previous inactivity, we, the Justice League, hereby request to begin work in all matters pertaining to world security and survival for the duration of this pivotal point in Earth's history. We will use this leave to fight for life, and against hardship, against prejudice, against war and struggle."_

Wilcox's mind raced in an attempt to sort things out, to imagine how they could have come to this, and also what his superiors within the organization must be construing with this.

_"If granted we will set about the difficult task of reorganizing this world-to the ideal of what it should be. But we can't do it alone. One nation alone couldn't do it, not even the United States. But if we work together who knows what might be possible. _

_"In exchange for your utmost cooperation and support, we, the Justice League, hereby vow to you to solve all the problems known to all nations-not just those brought on by super criminals, but those known to humankind since time immemorial._

_"We vow to significantly reduce poverty, hunger, war, disease, pollution, and tyrannical oppression within a single year from today. If we cannot do so in that time period, we will voluntarily give up any and all authority hereby invested in us._

_"If we succeed, we hope that there will be no more wars, no more senseless deaths, no more shows of force caused by petty differences. But, even more, we will help change the very shape of the world-there will be forests growing where there were once deserts; freedom where there had been oppression; lawfulness where there had been chaos._

_"There will no longer be a world where a million children die each year from malaria, where occupation or environmental disasters cause the majority of cancer cases. All of this that changes today, with your permission of course._

_"We do not demand this authority from you, and we understand the doubts and fears you all may have. We only desire to help._

"_If it is your decision to refuse us, we will honor it and return to our duties as your distant protectors._

"_We humbly await your decision."_

Composed, smooth, the woman said, "What you are seeing is occurring as we speak." She ran her fingers over keyboards and dials of the console.

Wilcox then saw that Superman held up what looked to be a large, magnetic computer tape.

"_In any case, this magnetic tape will remain our gift to you all. It is a record of the complete secret history of the Justice League and all our activities. The numerous extraterrestrial races that we have had contact with, and the myriad ways you also may make contact with them. It hold maps for the secret interior continents of this world and all the lost wonders they contain, all of it open to you. The designs for various devices that we have captured from different menaces and the possible applications for such technology used for good are recorded here._

"_For too long we kept the world of marvels to ourselves, we gallivanted among the stars and the secret places of the earth. We selfishly thought that it was all ours alone, but now we realize that it belongs to all of you as well. And so we now give it to you all, here and now."_

The Secretary-General was the first to speak. _"I...we here at the UN...everyone everywhere, we owe you all our lives a dozen times over. You need not have come here in penance. It we who should be indebted to you."_

The camera cut away to show all of the delegates smiling, and for a moment the conformity displayed in that simultaneous expression seemed odd to him. The smiles of the delegates seemed false, almost glassy.

Before he could consider the matter further, the Secretary-General spoke again. _"However, we cannot grant you the authority that you request, because we are all but delegates for the nations we represent."_

The Secretary-General continued._ "However, it is within my authority to sanction security forces, and grand them law enforcement powers roughly equivalent to those possessed by agents of the Peace Keeping forces. subject to periodic review at the my office's discretion. I see no reason why I myself would refuse you in this instance."_

"_So an official treaty will be written up and signed by both parties?" _Superman asked.

"_We have already drafted such a treaty," _the Secretary-General said, smiling wider._ "Indeed it is the very charter of this establishment."_

"_In that case, we would like to be sworn in as soon as possible. There was many things that will require our attention." _Superman said.

"_Then repeat after me." _the Secretary-General said._ "We, the Justice League..._

"_We, the Justice League," _the eleven superheroes said in unison.

It took them two minutes to finish reciting the United Nations' charter and another round of thunderous applause came after the eleven made their solemn oath. Superman motioned graciously in an appeal for quiet. The applause eventually faded at his request, allowing order to be restored in the Hall of General Assembly once more.

It was the Deputy Secretary-General who spoke next. "_Allow me now to propose that the delegates return to their respective nations or otherwise consult with their leaders so that a resolution of greater responsibility be awarded to these heroes, these shining beacons of hope and nobility." _

"_Motion accepted." _the Secretary-General said._ "We will tally the results in three days time."_

* * *

The atmosphere in the room burned with tension, and on the first day there was argument.

Archer was the first to speak, the monitor now blank.

"Tell us, Colonel. Was it you that put this idea into their heads?"

"No...I..." Wilcox started to say.

"Then you are not traitorous, merely incompetent." Archer said, stabbing a finger in Wilcox's direction. "You are the monsters' handler. That is precisely why you were selected. We had hoped that would prevent things like this from occurring. And now it seems that your charges have just declared their intention of running this world."

Wilcox realized that he was being baited and was about to prepare his response when General Corso turned in Archer's direction and said in a severe, yet calm voice. "We are not here to assign blame, Archer."

"Yes" Nathan Solely said seriously. "At this point we only want an explanation of what could have prompted this...fiasco."

Wilcox shifted, calming, attempting to frame his defense. "All he wants is a better world than what we currently have. What's the harm in a few extra mouths being fed. Short-sided, but a noble goal. It is one that he's been working towards for years, even if he didn't know it until now." Wilcox paused and then said "Really, how is this any different from our own goals?"

"Perhaps if it was from anyone but him..." Archer said. "He's not even human. We know that for a fact. He admitted in that famous interview with miss whats-her-name."

"Lois Lane of the Daily Planet." Wilcox said.

"Yes." Nathan Soley said, his eyes narrowing at the stilled image of the monitor. "He told her that he comes from a planet called Krypton, which makes him literally an illegal alien." One of the consultants sniffed, while the other muttered something Wilcox couldn't quite catch.

"He's a man." Wilcox stated. "When he comes into the room, the room turns to meet him, and they love him. When you have met him in person, he is as human as you or I. His humanity is never questioned. And now he is carrying the ideal of being a super hero to its logical conclusion."

Anthony Corso was next to speak, "Still, the point we are all missing is not that what he and the other members of the Justice League are doing is short-sided and naive, but rather what they will do with this new authority that has been granted to them, an authority that before has been never been placed in such a small group of individuals, let alone beings with the power they possess. It is a matter of concern for our...superiors."

Wilcox knew that was not the final meeting. Anthony Corso may be the highest ranking member of this organization in attendance, but he was merely a facilitator. While it was clear that he was in charge, he served people in still higher positions and would report back to them at the meeting's conclusion. Now he directed all others in the room like a schoolteacher ensuring that the students performed their assigned tasks.

"Until this matter is settled," Corso said. "Arrangements have been made for all of us to stay at this facility for the duration of this incident."

"Stay here? But-" Wilcox began and then stopped himself.

"The SDI has gone to great lengths to make your presence here unknown to even your closest aides." Corso went on to say. "Not an easy task even if you don't take into account of arranging meeting across multiple time zones. Everything is arranged to maintain the strictest secrecy, accomplished through the false itineraries we have created for each of you. They confirm your absence and have already been delivered to your respective associates and superiors. They may be surprised at receiving them so promptly, considering the state of the post these days, but these documents will withstand the closest scrutiny."

Wilcox said nothing in response.

"Then we will recess until 0700 hours tomorrow morning," the general concluded.

* * *

On the second day the countermeasures were presented.

Wilcox rubbed his eyes blearily. He had gotten little sleep in the sleeping quarters arranged for those attending the meeting. A mug of steaming coffee was pushed toward the colonel and he nodded his thanks.

Dennis Archer was conferring with his two consultants, all three keeping their voices low, conspiratorial. Many of the people in the room were wearing clothing that was more rumpled than usual, indicating that while sleeping quarters were available, no changes of clothes had been provided.

General Corso stood and looked steadily around the table. "Can I please have every one's attention?"

All conversation ceased, and the woman droned on about the minutes of the previous meeting and what she said meant little to Wilcox. The coffee was bitter in his mouth. When she had finished, Corso stood up.

"Let me start." Corso said, his voice surprisingly filling the conference room without raising itself beyond conversational level. "This organization is not the called Secret Department of Investigation for nothing. We've made it a point to monitor all super beings and their activities."

"Yes," Archer said. "Amazing what can be done with cathode ray tubes and encoded microwave bursts. We could break our way into even their encoded computer if we could and learn all we needed to know."

"The communications..." _Dear lord, how could I have not known._

Arched continued. "But unfortunately, the Justice League computer is protected by a security system that even our best technicians can't crack. It's almost certainly not of this earth. We may not know all of their real identities, but we have developed the countermeasures to deal with them in the instance that you failed to contain them, colonel."

Wilcox ignored the implied insult and asked Archer a direct question. "When and how did these developments occur?"

"Since we recruited to our side the scientific talents of Hiram Gulliver, Ira Quimby, Noah Tall, Thinquick..." Arched trailed off as he noticed Wilcox's widening eyes, and replied. "I'm certain that these are all names that you recognize, Colonel?"

"Those...those..._criminals_ are now working for _us_?" Wilcox asked in astonishment. "How?"

Archer's face revealed a pleasant amusement, but he continued in a serious tone. "Amazing what a brilliant, morally-bankrupt scientist will do to avoid a lengthy prison sentence. They use genetic engineering to breed monsters. They take long-discredited theories and somehow make them work. They build mind-control beams, killer viruses, and mechanical men, and now having been neatly folded into our organization, they've all been working very hard designing certain..._devices_ for the subduing of certain super-powered individuals."

"Let us first discuss the Legion of Doom," Corso said, ignoring Archer's tirade. "And the protocols that your department designed for their incapacitation should they return."

Arched gestured to his side and said. "My aide, Mr. Mergen will fill you in one the details."

_Mergen! _Or as he called himself Professor Baffles. That was where he recognized the man from. It would be suit Archer to reduce this once proud individual into service to him.

The thin, balding gentlemen in the tweed suit smiled nervously. Mergen stood up, straightening his clothes as he did so. He spoke directly to the point, saying "Sinestro, Grundy and Bizarro are what we most need to worry about, and that is what our people and the GEEC are working on: countermeasures."

"Go on." Solely said.

"Grundy and Bizarro are brute force personified, but they lack intelligence to properly use their raw might." "Sinestro is intelligent, and is arguably the most powerful being we have on file. Unlike his counterpart, his energy constructs don't give a damn if what they hit is yellow, red or blue."

"And the measure you came up with to deal with him?" Corso asked.

"Sinestro may be extraterrestrial, but as far as we can tell all his power lies in his ring. Take it away and he will die like any human being. Same principle with Giganta. Even at full size, she's never been tested against heavy ordinance-we believe that all it will take is one or two direct hits with coordinated mortar strikes and she's had it."

Wilcox did not like this man, but remained silent. He dealt out solutions that meant death too often. He had changed little since his time as Professor Baffles.

"Luthor, Nigma, Snart, Nimball and Crane are only human." Mergen said. "Even if their minds are prodigy-level, I've yet to see an intelligence score which is high enough to stop a bullet."

Polite laughter greeted his comment, and the scientist cleared his throat, taking a sip from a glass of water before continuting.

"Likewise with the non-human entities of Brainac and Gorilla Grodd. Their power lies in how they use their minds, and we can deal with them through the use of various methods we've devised, gases, high voltages, and hyper-sonics and the like. Our aim is disruption and confusion and then we use conventional means to stop them."

"Which leaves only Black Manta and Cheeta," Soley said.

"While we've never seen what Black Manta looks like underneath that wetsuit and helmet, all evidence suggests that he is a normal human being." Mergen said. "Unlike his counterpart, Aquaman, he has no powers that we have been able to determine, and he relies solely upon normal seagoing vehicles and related equipment to win his battles. He can safely be put in the same category as Luthor and the other so-called 'normals' of this group."

"As for Cheeta-" Mergen began to say.

"Enough with this," Wilcox interrupted, his temper at a boiling. "Need I remind everyone that, in spite of all their power, with all of their combined deviousness the Legion of Doom has always failed in each and every one of their schemes. There has not been a single reported human causality that can traced to any member of the Legion of Doom, which that itself is something of a miracle. There are sometimes reports of some second degree burns, a few people badly shaken up or stomped on in the panic, but no fatalities."

He had not really lost his temper. He never lost his temper. That was something he had learned long ago and remembered it with an old adage: Never let your temper. But he had grown tired of the posturing, the arrogance, the cold analysis, and he had chosen to react with a little fire in order to put these cold masterminds in their place.

"The colonel is correct." Archer said calmly, surprising all. "Gentlemen, I would like to say that we should put our worries squarely upon the Justice League, and what they are going to with their brand-new U.N sponsorship." Archer hesitated and then added. "If they can get it."

_They will_, Wilcox thought. _If the world collectively trusted one group it would be them. In spite of what Luthor and the rest of the Legion thought you didn't need hypno-rays to control the minds of men. You needed only their trust. _

_And if you couldn't trust Superman, who you could you trust?_

* * *

The Justice League was not idle during this time. Each of them embarked on series of speaking engagements, appearing at university campuses, hospitals, business luncheons, even common factories, as if on display for all the world to see. In nearly every case they seemed to win their audiences wherever they went, stirring people, particularly the working class.

Superman himself was available to speak on these occasions, often making special efforts to make contact with reporters. He seemed the very image of a champion, and more important than even his innate abilities was the fact that he could make people believe in him. He spoke of the community of humankind, the need to recognize that all were brethren, sharing a planet whose resources were meant for all. He urged people to join him in spirit.

"I will now open the floor for any questions or suggestions you all might have." Superman said after he had concluded his speech.

"Superman, what lead you to do this decision?" was the first question from one of the reporters.

"Call in conscience," Superman answered. "Call it the will of God. That voice that comes from your heart and tells you do what is right."

"Will you represent the interests of the United States primarily?" Another reporter asked.

"Despite our title, the Justice League is a diverse group whose members come from many different nations." He answered. "We are here to save the world as a whole, and not back any one individual country over any other."

"Is there any particular world problem that you will begin with?" a third reporter asked.

"Yes, we do have something specific in mind," Superman said, nodding. "There are various indications that major natural disasters are looming, not the least of which is the climatic damage which occurred during the Fearian incident."

He went on to say, "Fortunately Wayne Enterprises has recently developed a habitat, originally designed for the purpose of prolonged habitation on other planets. We have already made suggestions calling for the construction of such domes in every major metropolitan center as a precautionary measure, used to preserve a remnant of humanity in the event of environmental extinction, nuclear war, or 'Acts of God.' These will be a vast improvement over conventional bomb shelters as they will be almost completely self-sustaining for many years."

"What will you do about world hunger?" Another reporter asked.

"Between the Flash, Samurai, Green Lantern, Aquaman, and myself, we will each use our unique abilities to relieve famine-stricken areas of the world. We look forward to working alongside the UN peacekeeping forces, as well as helping relief workers and medical personnel."

"What of the Legion of Doom?" asked another reporter.

There was stir in the crowd at the question. The memory was fresh in their minds, none more than what the press had termed the 'Giants of Doom' incident. There were parts of Washington that still held minute cracks caused by the thundering steps of a 100-foot Bizarro. The weather patterns in the deserts of the Giza plateau near Cairo were still erratic due to the excess moisture when Leonard Snart froze it. China had turned inward, strengthening their defenses and military might; Sinestro's conquest of that massive country seemed too great humiliation for them to openly acknowledge.

"The Legion..." Superman paused, a frown marring his features. "We assure you all that if this group-whose very name reveals their antagonism-resurfaces and dares to attempt to disrupt what we are trying to accomplish, they will be pursued and incarcerated for their many crimes against humanity in an international court of law."

"But time and time again you've attempted to capture them, but they always escape." the reporter said, a tone of concern evident in her voice.

"Let me remind everyone of what Gandhi was once quoted as saying, 'Whenever I despair, I remember that the way of truth and love has always won. There may be tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they may seem invincible, but in the end, they always fail.' "

Superman paused, and then added.

"For too long the Legion has stood as our dark shadow...a twisted reflection. Where we strode to aid, they preferred to beat their plowshares into swords. They took the gifts of science and turned them into dark and nefarious things, and ventured into realms of knowledge where no one was meant to go. They took the miracle of the extraordinary and turned it to conquer and pillage.

"Perhaps selfishly- naively-we held back because we clung to the hope that they would join us in our struggle to help this world, or at least desist and disband. But we will take the fight to them should they return, and they will fail once again, this time permanently.

"Lex Luthor and his Legion has always been a clear example of Gandhi's pathos. They have always failed in the past, they are failures now, and they will always fail in the future...

"The times of games is over." He paused, and said firmly, "Next time we meet, it will be the end."

The day went on, and the questions never ceased until the setting of the sun.

* * *

On the second day the reproduction of metahumans were brought up and discussed.

Their meeting was joined by a succession of experts recruited by the SDI, one of which was Noah Tall.

Tall lived up to his name, six-foot five, rail-thin. On his narrow face a pair of clear prescription reading glasses glinted goldenly under the light. Even behind those glasses his eyes seemed to Wilcox to glitter with malice and contempt.

Another scientist was Hiram Gulliver, an ugly, short-statured, pudgy man of late middle-years with squinted eyes, bulbous nose and greasy hair pulled into a narrow widow's peak. He wore dark formal wear several decades out of fashion, complete with a bowtie.

"How are the metahuman population numbers?" Corso asked, consulting a prepared list of questions.

"Stable." Gulliver said nasally with an accent that Wilcox identified as east Austrian. Noah Tall nodded in agreement crisply, tapping a pencil on the table as he did so.

"Truly?" Archer added, and gazed around at the others.

Gulliver cleared his throat, then opened a manila folder before him and pawed through dozens of pages of notes, charts and graphs, saying as he did so. "Ever since they emerged metahuman population numbers have been constant. As far as we know, not one recorded death has occurred, nor have we seen any of them reproduce. It is a tenuous balance, one is almost certain to be disrupted, like all such things."

Gulliver paused, assessing whether or not to elaborate. "Either the metahumans will die off, in a sudden manner or it will slowly decline. Or their numbers will increase-slowly at first, and then double in size. We have made countermeasures for a few dozen super-beings, but do not yet have such for those that may come after them." He anxiously leafed through two pages of his folder.

"I disagree." Tall said simply.

"Explain." General Corso said, and leaned forward in his chair as his interest was piqued.

"Allow me to take Superman as an example," the tall scientist said. "If he is extraterrestrial what is the likelihood that his DNA is compatible with that of a human female?" He paused, letting the question settle. "I would say not likely at all."

The general nodded and asked, "And the others?"

Tall answered. "We have detailed scans of Aquaman and Wonder-Woman. And I can say with certainty that the same is true for them-both look human, but neither are."

"Wasn't Aquaman's father human?" Solely said. "I mean based on gathered intelligence?"

"Even if such were the case, then it is also possible that he is...oh shall I say? a mule?" Gulliver said. "And are we seriously suggesting that we are threatened by the presence of more 'Aquamen', of all of them?" Gulliver gave a wheezing laugh.

There was a brief chuckle from two of the consultants. Even Archer gave a brief smirk. Solely looked on, thinking on the implications and consulted his list of questions. Wilcox stood stoic.

Anthony Corso spoke loudly, though did not shout. His voice filled with controlled venom. "It was an aquaman who did this." he pointed to the eye-patch and scars surrounding it. "A memento from an incident off the coast of Massachusetts in 1928."

"With all due respect, General," Gulliver said, folding his notes back together. "That is unlikely. There are at least five sub-oceanic races that are we are aware of. Three of them are equipped with claws while those of Aquaman's people have none."

Corso said nothing. His expression returned to its usual placidity after his outburst. Solely took the silence to speak, "and Wonder-Woman?"

"Wonder-Woman may appear to be flesh and blood." Tall said. "She breathes and even bleeds when wounded, but our scans have indicated she is not alive in the biological sense. Call it magic or super-science, but her skin, bone and tissues are comprised of super-dense phyllosilicates. Wonder Woman is a goddess not only with feet of clay; she is entirely clay.

"Likewise Black Vulcan is an energy being that thinks himself still human. From our observations, even though he can assume solidity, he has lost the ability to metabolize normal sustenance. Sometimes he has even forgotten to pretend to breathe or blink. Though he may continue to exist, unaging, we shouldn't count on his ability to pass on his genes."

"Green Lantern, El Dorado and Apache Chief all get their powers from either what could be called 'magic' or otherwise external forces. They may pass these abilities to others either through teaching or giving out certain associated paraphernalia, but the number will remain constant even if that should be the case."

Tall looked over his notes and seemed to be reaching the bottom of the page. "Batman and Robin are normal...human, which leaves only the Flash."

"Should we be concerned about him?" said Archer's other smiling consultant. Again, Wilcox was teased by the knowledge he should know this man. And he was again irritated by the young man. He knew there was a whole world of deception behind that smile.

Gulliver answered this. "Analysis of his blood chemistry reveals that the same chemicals that gave him his tremendous speed are likely to have also rendered him sterile."

"So it is decided." Archer said with relish. "Without the means of reproduction, and law of averages still applying, perhaps the metahuman problem will take care of itself."

Corso then called the meeting to a close, and all left the chamber to return to their assigned quarters.

* * *

On the third day, people were gathered again at the United Nations, this time in swarms; and security guards were having difficulty holding them back. It delayed the proceedings, and the arriving limousines had to queue up single file and wait until they were directly in front of the Secretariat building before they could discharge their passengers.

The General Assembly had reconvened, having met with or communicated with their respective heads of state, and now they had only to case their vote. Many heads of state had arrived to give their votes in person. Still the building was full to overflowing, as many dignitaries from the U.S. including most of the House and Senate, were in attendance. The major new agencies would broadcast the speech live.

When all the delegates were seated, and the eleven members of the Justice League had assembled near the podium, the Secretary-General asked. "All in favor?"

With the thunder that came with synchronicity, all the assembled delegates and leaders raised their hands.

The Secretary-General gave a smile and said into the microphone "...the vote is unanimous. We accept the Justice League's offer and give them license to guide this planet to a new, greater future."

Quickly Superman took the stand.

"Let us be worthy of this great task ahead of us." he said. "I hope you will all join us in ushering in a new age of trust and friendship and unity for all the Earth."

* * *

Impossible. There is no way that there would be such accordance, not between so many different nations, not in so short a time.

"The Green Lantern's ring can affect minds, correct?" Archer demanded, his head whipping back and forth between the screen and those seated in the conference room. "Check traces of energy characteristic to his ring!" He gestured towards the female aide.

While the woman ran checks and consulted her console, the men argued. They whispered vehemently back and forth. Wilcox saw himself in a few decades in these individuals before him; bitter, suspicious, and skeptical.

Finally the GEEC node gave its response, which the woman summarized aloud. "Readings negative for Green Lantern energy. All normal. United Nations headquarters holds no traces of abnormal chemicals or radiation."

"Could we be seeing some kind of bribery or coercion on a global scale?" Archer asked to no one in particular.

"Even if the Justice League were of the inclination to threaten or bribe the leaders of the world," Solely answered. "There is no way they could do it to all of them over such a short period of time, nor could they do it secretly."

"How is the rest of the world taking this?" Archer asked.

"We can expect riots to begin occurring shortly," Nathan Solely said "Later there will be troop movements as some nations begin to close their borders and begin arming for their defense. Blackouts may occur. Martial law will be declared in most countries, and food rationing will be next. We all are safe here, but we'll have to prepare for possible-"

"Negative," the woman said.

"What?" Nathan Solely uttered in incomprehension.

The woman at the console continued. "Radio and television is full of opinions about the vote itself, but we are receiving no reports of anything beyond the norm in major cities. There are news reports of celebrations and similar activities, but no riots have yet occurred. That may change in the next few hours, but it is nothing close to any of our predictions for an event like this."

There was a long silence followed.

Corso then stood and addressed the whole room. "Gentlemen, we have witnessed the near impossible. Warring nations have put aside their normal animosity and placed all their power into the hands of Superman and his ilk. From every information source we have, his proposal is in place in principle. If he can organize this, and if he gets it done then he will continue to enjoy the U.N's support. Diseases cured. Food distributed. Wars and conflict brought to an end or at least contained. As Superman said, let us hope that he is worthy of it." General Corso then placed both hands flat on the table and said, "Colonel?"

Hearing that he was being addressed, he stepped up from his chair to stand at attention.

"We have too much invested in you. Too much money and too many secrets. Your prior performance has earned you this one reprieve. It is absolutely essential, Colonel," the general said "that you renew your relationship with your 'Super Friends'."

"Just to clarify, sir," Wilcox said "I have never referred to the Justice League by that title."

"You have too much respect for them to name them otherwise?" Corso asked.

"That would be one reason, sir." Wilcox replied.

"Then you are to renew your former relationship with the Justice League." The general held up a finger as if making a point. "And watch them very closely. Whatever happens we trust that you will handle the situation."

"Meet with them directly?" the colonel asked.

"That would be best," Corso said. "And try your utmost to gain access to the Hall of Justice, its computer, and its archives. There are things stored there that we must know." He paused and added. "After all, they trust you."

"Is there any other relevant developments I should be informed of?" Wilcox asked.

"It's obvious that we will also need more information before our superiors can make a decision." Corso said calmly. "We will get in contact with another former associate of the Justice League: two wondrous associates, in fact."

Wilcox jolted, then tensed, his heart suddenly stepping up in pace. He ominously accented 'wondrous'. He surely meant-

"Wendy Harris and Marvin White." Corso said.

Wilcox relaxed then, his previous tension dissipating.

"Why those two?" he asked as casually as he could muster.

"For years those two had been a human face for the Justice League." Corso said. "They could be a fount of valuable information. I'm surprised that we never considered picking them up before."

"Not surprising. Wendy Hariss is the granddaughter of Hourman." Wilcox said. _Good luck finding her._

"Yes, we are aware of Wendy's heritage." Corso said, and then added. "Oh, and Colonel?"

"Yes?" Wilcox answered

"Fail in this assignment, and you will be replaced with Maxwell over here." Corso pointed to Archer's handsome consultant who smiled.

Wilcox only nodded, remembering now where he had seen the man's face before. Archer's consultant was Maxwell Lord: the young heir to Chimtech, a major chemical manufactoring company.

Before Wilcox could consider just how Lord could replace him as the Justice League's liaison, Corso addressed everyone in the conference room. "Gentlemen, allow me to end this meeting saying that we will all do our part make sure that this planet remains in the hands of humanity, first and foremost. Is there anything else we need to cover?"

No one in the room seemed eager to speak.

"We will reconvene in a month's time." Corso said. "Earlier, if the Justice League decides to act beyond the perimeters of their jurisdiction."

The seated figures all nodded, shuffled as they gathered their belongings and gratefully made their way towards the room's exit.

* * *

As he left, thoughts were abuzz in Wilcox's head, thoughts such as where his true loyalties resided: in his youth-hood heroes or this organization that had given him so much and demanded much more.

Though he had defended his case, Wilcox knew that he had failed to convince them and realized for the first time just how vulnerable he was. Trust was the only real power that he had.

His people would not trust the Justice League. The SDI were not searching for anything so humbling as trust. No, it was power that they sought, and now they feared of losing their chance over what happened in these last three days.

If men like Archer had their way, Wilcox would be owned, giving them all they wanted, when they wanted. This organization wanted him to be a puppet, a yes-man with no respect. His hard-won knowledge would be subverted, and he would lose his soul. Everything would have been for nothing if he betrayed the Justice League. He couldn't do it.

Still he knew from prior experience that the SDI would do nothing until they possessed ten times as much information. There would still be time.

Another thought nagged at him. When Corso had brought up the 'wondrous pair' of individuals Wilcox briefly thought that he had meant another two. That was precisely why he had panicked. And he then realized:

The Department didn't know about them, the newest wards of the Justice League, that brother and sister from the stars. No one at that meeting had ever mentioned them.

If anything it proved that they were not omniscient. That there was a secret that was kept from the cabal of secrets. Wilcox knew something that his masters did not.

He smiled at the notion.

And then his next thought was:

Why would that matter? And why didn't I mention them? And would their clandestine status change things-tip the scales?

He allowed him a small chuckle at the thought.

He was Colonel Johnathon Wilcox. He had been born to witness a time of heroes. That was his purpose. Sometimes to be part of something like this, something so magnificent, that was enough. It would always be enough, for no matter his age, there was always more surprises to witness.

He had been there at its beginning, and he wished to never see it end.

* * *

There would be several more hours more of taking questions before the day drew to a close. Superman spoke of meeting later today with the UN Security Council to draft several new resolutions. He promised restoration and eventual revitalization across borders. While the specifics of the Justice League's aims remained vague, Superman's words were enough. He answered questions on the protection of certain nations, the perils and repercussions of nuclear disarmament and the treatment of diseases, but the day neared its end there was time for but a single last question from the assembled press.

"If there anything else you would like to say, Superman?" the reporter asked.

"We are here," he smiled. "And we are your friends."


	20. A Feral Child

She was aware that she lay in a moment of perfect stillness, held where movement and sound were suspended. It was as if life, the world (_which_ world?) and all that existed in it, held its breath for a length of time; elastic and finite. She was alive in this cocoon, insulated, away from the threatening reality that had confronted her-a reality inhabited by monstrous forms of blades, spikes, whips and darts; yet she couldn't be certain if they were truly memories or hallucinations.

This moment of stillness passed.

Awakened by the light of a morning sun, she pushed sleep from her eyes and stared up at a blue sky framed by twining green branches of a jungle canopy. Through the gaps she saw fast-moving white clouds and a warm breeze was on her face, one that was moist and heavy with a scent of newness, of freshness, the smells of wild animals and the fragrances of plant life mingling as it blew across the land.

She breathed in the warm, intoxicating and fragrance; making her shiver as she did.

For a long time she lay on her back, staring up at the feverish green of the trees and the random, multicolored bits of light that she identified as insects. Where she could see it through the puzzle of leaves, the sky was awesomely deep and blue. She peered into that clear sky. Never had it seemed so wide, so deep; everything seemed so pure.

Unconsciously, she dug her fingers into the warm dirt by her right knee. It was granular but fine. Silt loam like wet dirt on a riverbank. Sand. Silt, clay, organic matter - maybe moss? When she dug her toes dig into the loam they felt planted. She held on, half-expecting this scene to unfurl and shift, to fall into that blue sky and be transported to some other place.

As she strove to lose herself in the phantasmagoria of foliage, ground, sky and scent, a profound awareness of the interconnectedness of all things in Creation seemed to arise not from her mind, not even from her heart, but from the smallest structures of her being, as if the microscopic tides of cytoplasm in her billions of cells responded to her surroundings in much the way that Earth's oceans were influenced by the moon. All was one here, the plants, the sky, the ground, and she was a tiny dot apart from it.

And then she remembered where she was.

She was taking in air that was not of the air of the world of her birth. Here, she was the strange thing, a speck of alien matter in a mundane place. In having taken her first breath, she had allowed foreign molecules to pass into her lungs, contaminating her tissues. She wasn't supposed to be here, so far from home.

_Don't think about it._ she said to herself. _Nothing that can be done about that now, Priscella._

Again and again she took the cleansing air into his lungs, as deeply as they would allow, until a slight light-headedness set in. She felt dizzy, whether from the lingering effect of the dart's chemical or because the air was different here, she did not know. Nauseated, she wrestled with vertigo.

With a low moan, Priscella levered her elbows under her and slowly raised herself up. Somewhere close by, what sounded like a jungle bird shrieked and another answered it. She could hear also hear distant chirruping sound, as of unknown animal calls. From somewhere off in the distance, she could hear the rush of water-a stream or river. Thirst was an ample motivator, she finally got on her knees, and then walked towards the trees.

How long had she been unconscious? It could have been minutes, it could have been hours. For all she knew, it might well have been days. Had she been here for long? She couldn't remember. She couldn't remember much of anything. All she knew was the now of the moment, the present the only thing that was certain. She noticed that she still wore the yellow, black-spotted leotard, the costume worn by her other self. She debated removing it for a moment, and then decided against. It was the only thing that she possessed here, even if what it represented caused her distress.

Her thoughts turned away from the issue of clothing to her new surroundings. Where was she now? Not anywhere familiar. She had never seen such a primeval jungle. Yet here it was before her, walls of life, brilliantly painted against a horizon as if by a master impressionist: green upon yellows upon blues upon reds. Here, she walked past trees that were enormous, towering monsters. They wavered boastfully, throwing off reflections from the sun from their leaves and fronds. There were vines, woody and thick, embracing the tree trunks with lover's grips, and the grasses and flowers below the trees shook, suggesting the movement of exotic animals.

Still thirsty, she decided to head in the direction of the river that she heard earlier, picking her way carefully as she did so. The jungle floor was carpeted with a thick layer of humus, out of which grew an untold variety of fungus, ferns, and other plants that needed less direct sunlight to live. She recognized flowering plants similar to the magnolia, the sassafra, and the viburnum, along with ferns, horsetails and liverworts. The massive trees were similar to cycads and gingkos and they climbed hundreds of feet into the sky, their thick canopy blocking the sun from reaching lesser plants on the ground.

Gradually, the jungle thinned and the slope sharpened. Through a break in the towering trees, she could see a sloping cliff of dark basalt. With few options, and none that offered immediate deliverance she took a step out of the foliage.

Just as she had cleared it, she heard a new sound. Something else was moving through the jungle.

Priscella froze, her ears pricked, her heart racing. The sounds echoed again, the distinctive crunch of fallen branches beneath approaching feet.

Very large, very loud feet.

She did not move, kneeling within a dark thicket of dense brush, wishing herself invisible. She hoped that whatever the thing was would pass without noticing her presence. The steps grew closer, the crunching even louder. In the inky darkness of the forest, she could not see their source.

Priscella held her breath, afraid that whatever it was might hear the sound of her pounding heart.

Then, without warning, the thundering footsteps stopped. She strained to hear any sign of the thing, knowing it was near.

Then she knew. It was listening as well.

In the silence, she could hear its breathing, a deep, wet, rasping sound of air passing through its enormous lungs.

Slowly she craned her neck upward, trying to zero in on the source of the breathing. Higher her gaze rose and higher still.

The footsteps sounded again, angling for her position now. She felt the ground beneath her shake as colossal branches yielded to a moving, massive weight, their splintering betrayed by loud, repeated cracks that swept across the jungle floor towards her.

She bolted for the clearing. The footsteps sound directly behind her, louder, faster. She passed a few trees and broke into the open, ducking behind a slab of basalt and went still, her breathing coming in deep gulps, her heart screaming in her ears. She hugged the volcanic stone, trying to meld into it.

Minutes passed.

The footsteps had ceased, but she remained there for several minutes more. Eventually she crawled forward, peering around the rock, back in the trees from which she had come. Casting her gaze about, she watched for it, but saw no sign of the beast that had pursued her.

It had gone.

Around her now lay a breath-taking panorama of virtually unspoiled land. On three sides of the clearing, the dense primeval forest rose like walls. To her right the clearing opened at the head of a narrow valley. Beyond it, high peaks rose to touch the bright blue sky with an almost crystalline beauty, a stark contrast to the tangled jungle in which she had been placed. The cliff remained on her right, towering and ragged, as formidable as a castle rampart, spotted here and there with scrubby vegetation that somehow managed to sustain its perilous existence on the vertical unspoiled plunge of basalt.

After several minutes of staring, Priscella turned from the view. She knew she was not yet safe, aware that her survival depended upon finding a secure hiding place.

As she walked forward a sudden, silent atmospheric change in the air stopped her short. It was an extraordinary moment, supercharged with a mystical quality so supremely grand in character and so formidable in power that she was overcome by awe and trembled with a peculiar exhilaration that was almost joy. Her breathing became quick and shallow, and her limbs grew weak.

The vibrations beat at her brain like remorseless drums. Paradoxically, at one moment she wanted to leap up and dance with delight-at another she wanted to scream in utter inexplicable terror. It was as if the valley had been instantly charged with a primal force, something utterly powerful.

That something was behind her now.

Slowly, she turned her head.

Stocky and menacing, the spiked armored form stood less than thirty feet away behind her. He stood as still and unyielding as a prison wall, an imposing figure in black and crimson. A heavy cape, dark as the night, was draped over his shoulders. A yellow flame wrapped itself around his left gauntlet. The spectre had inclined his helm towards Priscella, regarding her as a man might view a loathsome insect.

He was standing there, seemingly immobile as waiting if for her to make the first move, to give him the excuse to come forward after her. He was only a few inches taller than her, but the solitary of his presence gave him the impression of bigness.

She froze, sucking in a breath she might have used to cry for help if any aid were remotely likely. Instead she made herself twist around for the faster sprint she could manage, but her legs shuddered to a halt.

The figure was now ahead of her, at barely half the distance.

There had been no noise, no rush of air indicating that it had sped to its current position. The figure's uncanny silence seemed more terrifying than if it were to suddenly emit a metallic roar.

It was clear now, if she turned away she would find the shape closer to her, but moving forward would bring it closer too. The demon was out in the open at last. The time of concealment and cunning deception was over with. Whatever this thing intended for her, however unpleasant, was about to be revealed.

_Don't look at it_, she thought, but it was much too late. She could only shut her eyes and try to stay absolutely still. It was too dark inside her eyelids and yet not sufficiently dark. The image was burned into her lidless, un-blinking mind's eye. She was terrified to see the silhouette looming if she shifted so much as an inch. She didn't dare open her mouth, but she imagined speaking - imagined it with all the force she could find inside herself.

_Leave me alone, _she thought._ Go away. I didn't do anything. Get someone else._

She opened her eyes when a strange, low moan echoed from off in the distance, a bellowing sound, the call of a great beast. It drew immediate responses in kind from many different directions. Her fear forgotten momentarily Priscella turned her head towards the valley and cocked her head to listen. She could not imagine what creature had made the mournful call, but she knew that she had never heard the sound before.

Then the ground shook under feet—a low, rumbling sound at first, that growing until it was impossible to stand. The thunder was all around her, the ground reverberating so that it was difficult to merely sit on it.

There came a sudden noise, a cracking of branches and the thud of heavy footsteps.

Her eyes widened in amazement, her mouth hanging agape.

In the far distance, there were vast shapes, humped colossal forms barely visible amongst the foliage. The shapes moved forward, collapsing small trees beneath their elephantine feet, their long necks bobbing up and down as they moved. To see them move, to walk was uncanny. Such things were meant to be geologic, or mechanical, not alive. It was as though a cathedral has become flesh, sprouted enormous legs, tail, and elongated neck, and began to march across the world. Not just one. Dozens of them. The sight was overwhelming to her senses.

These were supposed to be long-dead, even Priscella knew that. They had died eons past, and left their petrified bones to be found in the eroding sides of cliffs, and then strung together in museums. But these were real, as real as herself. She could hear the slap of their tails, feel the seismic boom of their huge feet making contact with the plain beneath them.

The earth tremors increased dramatically as the herd lumbered into a half-trot, the behemoths pounding the plain with their immense weight.

Had she gone back in time, she wondered. Or did such things still exist in this parallel universe? Was this possibly even Earth? A different Earth where history had taken a distant path?

How long had she been here? Where were the others?

"Does it matter?" a voice behind her said; deep and broad as the sea, clear and authoritative and as soothing as the sound of waves breaking against warm sand. "We are here now."

She turned to face him. He had spoken, and not attacked.

"You speak English?" she croaked, finding her voice. Her lips felt numb; she wasn't sure how she could manage to speak.

The being held up a gauntleted hand, indicating the yellow band around one of the gauntlet's fingers, and said "Ring-words."

"Where are we?" she asked.

The armored being closed his fist, and held the ring upward. Instantly a holographic image of a world's continents and its bodies of water appeared less than a foot from her, hovering on beams of golden light emanating from the yellow ring. He pointed to a small glowing point of light on what appeared to be a northern continent, its middle divided by the world's equator. The point was far inland, far from any major bodies of water such as seas or oceans.

"Are we there?" she said.

"Yes," the being answered simply.

"We are in the middle of a continent?" she asked.

"A crack in the tile of his palace," the being replied.

"What?"

The armored form shifted its feet and turned slowly. "For you it is a continent, but to one who uses the galaxies as stepping stones, it is but a scrub-brush patch."

She felt suddenly dizzy.

"Still, it is a young, turbulent ecosystem," the armored being said with a hint of admiration, stooping to one knee and gathering its cape in one hand and gestured widely with the other. "The invasion of certain mammalian species from the north has upset an ecological organization many millennia old. These new arrivals are seeking to establish themselves, stake out new territories, protect their own food supplies, and raise young. But the native species refuse to give up territory to the invaders.

"And so populations of native and invader are jostling one another, and predator packs are moving hundreds of miles each season, far more than they would in a normal year. There is no end of ways to die on here, and none are so cunning nor so savage as to be entirely immune to the countless dangers."

He spoke as if he knew from experience.

"Yes," he continued. "Here in a place like this you might suffer, you might die. You might have to battle the elements or ferocious beasts. Everything can go wrong. But you battle as a whole person. Because you are a part of nature. It is vast, and it is part of you. Here there are no scalpels, no corridors. No false expectations. There is no..._hopelessness_." With finality, the being said "There is no waste in struggle, especially in victory."

"Why did you bring me here?" she asked.

"To make you what you wish to be, or what you fear you are," the spectre said "Or both. Maybe both."

"Wait, what will I eat?" Priscella asked, dreading the answer.

"Plants, roots, herbs, all of nature is a laboratory." Without speaking, the armored spectre raised his fist, yellow-light projected images that hovered in the humid air. They were various strange-looking botanical forms and curiously-colored fungus. "These species of flora you must avoid, but if one knows where nature's secrets lie, this jungle can provide untold bounties; plants that enhance strength, flowers that promote healing, fungi that produce euphoria and granted voyages of the imagination, herbs that will, over time, increase musculature, bone density and inhibit aging.

The spectre spread its arms as though encompassing all the world. "Everything you ever strove for, everything you ever wanted, is right there, yours for the taking. But it will not be given to you. You will have to take it for yourself."

"How?" she asked.

The being then turned its armored head, as if it listened obediently to some angel on its right shoulder, who now told it what he must do. After a few moments, the being answered. "Let your instincts loose, allow the lower mind, your sharpened mind, to guide and direct. Concentrate all on a single goal, and you can accomplish anything you desire."

"I don't understand what you mean," she said.

"You will," the being said. "Some things I will teach, others you will be shown."

She turned back to the valley, carefully considering every word it had said to her.

When she turned back the being had disappeared, so suddenly that Priscella found herself startled and lost.

* * *

_Should I walk, or should I remain here?_ she pondered. There was no apparent advantage to any one location as another.

She decided that if she was to meet her fate in this strange, fertile locale, she would rather do so by traveling to meet that fate than by waiting passively for it to come to her, and so she walked.

It was easier traveling, she found, to following in the trail of the herd. Without having to fight through the vegetation, even with dodging the crater-like footprints, she made much better time

With the arrival of the morning, the temperature had risen by many degrees, and the jungle was humid and filled with annoying insects as she walked through the brush. The mosquitoes swarmed angrily, biting her arms and face. Her present attire-the spotted garment-was ill-suited for this warmth and humidity, but it played a part in keeping the insects away from much of her body.

The oxygen, so rich compared to what she had known, that its lightness intoxicated her, making the blazing sun baking her skin less torturous. She still felt mantled in sweat, and her clothes hung damply upon her shoulders, clinging to chest and back. The sun burned parts of her exposed skin. Insects bit her eyelids and buzzed in her ears; through it all she pressed on.

The jungle around her was alive with noise and sound and color. The buzz of insects, the raucous cries of animals, and the shuddering crash of something heavy moving through the brush. A thorny branch caught at shoulder of her leotard, and with her next movement she heard the cloth rip.

Once she heard a fluttering in the hazy air and several dark, winged shapes sailed across her field of vision toward the rim of the nearest cliff; beaked shapes riding the thermals of air on leathery wings. At first she feared that they would swoop and attempt to carry her off, but the flying reptiles appeared disinterested in her.

It was then that her stomach growled with hunger. Priscella could not remember when she had last eaten. Good, nourishing food was something that she had taken for granted for most of her life. It's only when one has missed a few full meals that it was brought to the forefront of one's mind. After moving a dozen more feet, she found that she would not die of thirst.

She found the flowing river whose sounds attracted her originally. She cupped her hands to sip its water, sweet and cool. She averted her eyes from her reflection in the water, not truly knowing why. Only knowing that there was something in her reflection that desperately wanted her to see it, and would have her gaze upon nothing else but it. But Priscella did not look at it, not yet. She would not look at her reflection for as long as she could.

Glossy-leafed bushes rustled then, and a sinuous scaled form glided into view and stood watching her with large eyes. Priscella froze, having never seen a creature before.

It was some manner of reptile, large as a barrel, and standing about the height of her waist. A protective shield protected its neck, and it possessed a beak like a jungle parrot. The creature paid no particular attention to her. After that first stare, it too bent to drink the river's water. She decided to ignore it and walked away from the pond as soon as she felt sufficiently hydrated.

Small reptiles on two legs skittered by under her feet. They eyed her warily and faned under the branches of massive ferns.

She pushed through the jungle for half a day and the sun slowly traversed in the glaring blue sky, higher, burning even more intensely. As she walked she unconsciously panted in the tropical heat, drawing the oxygen-rich air into her starved lungs.

As the shadows started to lengthen, she noticed several large trees whose roots had apparently given way in the spongy soil. After the trees had toppled about halfway some time in the past, their branches had locked and meshed. Now they leaned together, covered with creepers, dead leaves and lichen, forming a natural cover.

Priscella surveyed the spot for long minutes before she stepped under the tent of trees and sat down. There were no crawling things, and the shadows were dark and cool. The tree-fern fronds would conceal her, and with luck she would make it through the morning.

She stripped out of her garment-now drenched in her sweat-and stretched out on the cool, dewy carpet of moss. Priscilla stretched and sat down in her nest, watching the sun as it sank slowly. She rolled over, and the orange-red light painted her skin the color of clay. Her stomach groaned again, she attempted to ignore it and close her eyes.

* * *

She dreamed that she was at a masquerade party in a ballroom lined with mirrors. There was dozens of other people, many wearing simple black masks over their eyes, their tuxedos and ball-dresses otherwise unadorned. Others wore full-face masks with fanciful images painted on them. Everyone here was in masks and costumes, except for her.

The fact that she was the only one not dressed up seemed a cause for amusement among the others. As she walked pass them, she heard low giggles and whispered comments.

Where was she? Did she know these people? Over the course of her mundane life, before she had put on the costume and infamous identity that had led her to a life of villainy, she had attended a seemingly endless stream of charity-balls, country-club events, cotillions and soirees. She remembered that time as one of parental ultimatums and lewd offers of marriage, foot-aches for being on her feet all night, the headaches from her studies at prep-schools.

It didn't matter. This was a party. There would be food and drink here. Even in dreams she was dreadfully hungry, and if there was sustenance here she would take it.

She walked forward determinedly, passing a fat man wearing a fish-head mask, his cape rimmed with glistening scale mail. On the dance floor, there were several couples dancing with wild, jerky movements, like they were marionettes controlled by an intoxicated puppet-master: heads lolling strangely from side to side as they whirled and spun. Their smiles seemed plastered to their faces appeared garish, almost grotesque.

She became aware of their gazes, as though she were freakish for being without costume or mask at his event. Again and again she pushed away others who pressed themselves against her, and she wanted to scream. Instead she bit her lip and tasted blood.

To compound her irritation, her skin itched strangely, and hurt. Worse and worse it hurt, as if something wanted out, to leap from her skin, and be free for good.

She saw the refreshment table up ahead. She would eat from it and find some relief from her fast. Eating would help restore her strength and awareness, and then she could think clearly.

Finally reaching the table, she threw herself into the assembled hor's doruves, eating what she could, but it wasn't enough; she knew it. It was the food of dreams, a memory of taste. She knew what she really wanted. She felt where she had bitten her lip; and then she gave a low growl, a sound that frightened her.

She turned from the table, splattered remnants of food sloughing off her now filthy-stained gown, and her eyes met those of the other guests. They were all staring at her, many looked concerned, as if she were a madwoman, a lunatic. Others smiled, chiding her with whispers of _"Priscella...oh Priscella."_

In that instant, she remembered the ruin her life had become, the waste of years lost as her other self reigned. She had never been in control of her life, and its changes. And now the only thing these so-called peers offered were jeers and taunts. The looks of pity were somehow worse, as though she were a pathetic wreck, unworthy of dignity or respect.

She could see their swelled sides, their contented, self-satisfied smiles. She felt despair, and anger, but she also felt no surprise. These people had never experienced hunger of her like, and they undoubtedly never would. Rage ignited in her chest, searing her heart, burning away the self-pity that had formerly dwelt there. How dare they treat her so? Had they had no shame? Did they not see her hunger? Was her distress so amusing? Would none help, give her aid. Or if not aid, then respect at least? She felt the blood well in her eyes, coloring everything red.

The clock struck twelve.

"Unmask!" came the collective cry as was the custom of any masquerade.

She did, unconsciously she tore away from her clothes, her hair, her flesh. She reached behind her own head and pulled, revealing what was underneath, what had always been underneath the pale, pathetic woman she had been. Her skin-the skin that she had been wearing-sloughed to the floor like a baggy coat with a wet thump.

She stood then for a moment, staring into her reflection feeling fresh; thirsty, predatory. Her reflection stared back: yellow costume, black spots, half-mask with furred ears, glorious claws unsheathed and extended from his fingertips

The other had her now, or she had become the other. It was different now. Before the other had been vain and mischievous and treacherous, now the other was wanton destruction and death, roaring, mad.

There were screams now. And she delighted in their fear. This was how she was supposed to be. She would avenge every slight by tearing their throats apart. She would satisfy her hunger by drinking their blood and eating their flesh. She would kill and kill and exult in the deaths.

With a primordial shriek of pure rage, she lunged forward at the guests who cowered in all directions at her approach.

* * *

She woke trembling, wet with sweat. She rolled from the bed of moss. Shaking in the dark, she first thought the wetness on her body was blood, not sweat.

_Never again! _she vowed, still hot with the shame at how she had succumbed to it in her dream. _Never. Never. _She was Priscella Rich. Not Cheet...

_No._

To say its name was to acknowledge it, to invite it in, and give it power. She would not even think it. She wore its skin, but she was the one in control, even if she feared it was a part of her that she would never be free of. She would reject what the dream had offered, both its promise of savagery and its memory of how things were before.

She could never forget it was there, now so much stronger than other most times. It felt like the beast within her was reacting to this new environment, some resonance or connection had been made, and now it stalked her in dreams, taunting her to let it free in this new world. With the night breeze on her face and the dark and the wild surrounding her, she felt it rise up, more alive than she was herself. If she let it free, if she let it live in her body to do as it please, what would it do?

_She would die, if she gave it the freedom in this savage, new place. _

To live, she would never fully release the animal within, even if that was what the armored being wanted.

She lay there in blackness concealing lesser blackness. She felt small, a transient mote of microscopic life in an abyss. She listened to the sounds of the night: the croaking of frogs, and the steady pulse of insects. There were other noises mixed in there as well, chuckles and distant warbling cries. She found those sounds oddly comforting.

_Go to sleep, Priscella, _she told herself, and soon she did, pulling her legs beneath and folding her arms against the night.

* * *

Closing her eyes, the jungle was gone. The world was gone. Night was gone. Dreaming, she found herself in a strange and foreign place where the sun burned red and high and vultures spun in dark circles above a death-littered plain of ash. It seemed to be predawn or dusk here. The shrieks of the jungle were replaced by the cries of fighting.

She spun, realizing that she stood in the middle of a vast battlefield. Voices of agony cried out-moans and cries, the last gasp of lives near their end. Overturned chariots and wagons burned far and wide, casting firelight all around. Everywhere were the dead and dying, many thousands maimed and wounded beyond the ability to survive. The soil under her feet was soaked in blood.

For as far as she could see in the misted distance, soldiers clashed.

And in the center of it all was _he._

The man in the spiked armor made for an incredible sight as he drove forward into the advancing force. The carnage was absolute and horrible, but Priscella, shielded by detachment, soon found herself unable to look away. It was all so real, yet so unreal. His spiked armor bore the marks of a thousand parried cuts so there was no separating the blood from its natural scarlet. The armored form struck down each barbaric shape that rose against him with a double-bladed sword, savagely felling one enemy after another. He swung his sword as if harvesting wheat, and his foes fell just as surely. None of his attackers appeared to realize that to challenge him was death, for this man was the ultimate warrior, the strongest fighter, as well as the purest survivor.

The battle became a rout, as the warriors could not withstand the power of his onslaught. Dismembered bodies covered the darkened ground so densely that she found it difficult to walk without stepping on them. They formed mounds around the armored being. Each time he dropped a man upon a mound, he did not cast him another glance, as if he had dropped tens and tens of thousands. As if strength was his birthright and nothing within war-not the savagery nor the butchery nor the field of dead men that stretched in every direction with abandoned banners waving drearily in a battle-heated wind-could enter his mind, for he fought for more than banners.

Her heart stopped when he turned and noticed her watching. His unseen eyes flashed, and for a moment her skin seemed to burn under the intensity of that gaze. Why was he looking at her when countless others filled the battlefield?

Behind and above her came a flapping sound.

She turned to see a monstrous carrion bird plunging at her. More reptile than bird, it dived and pursued her, coming this way and that, as if herding her somewhere. Before she knew it, she found herself on the plain, in the thick of battle. Everywhere, swords clashed and shields shattered. Spears arced overhead, seldom missing their target.

Then she felt something pierce her right shoulder. She saw the arrow just before she felt the pain, as lightning before thunder. Had she been weaker, she would have screamed in agony, instead she swooned as the pain threatened to sweep her away.

She dove to the ground, taking refuge behind a fallen chariot as all around her the battle raged.

She opened her eyes to see the powerful warrior standing over her, his helmet inclined. When Priscella looked into the darkness of the helm she momentarily forgot her fear, or her fear increased even more; she could not be sure. For the implacable gaze revealed a cold force that did not seem to know life; a force of absolute, pure strength, merciless.

One word came to mind, almost like a psychic scream, and she knew that it had to be the demigod's name.

_Warlord._

* * *

She awoke with her tongue feeling like burnt leather. Her brain was dull, her thoughts felt sluggish and a headache was developing. The jungle was dark, but even in that darkness she could see the shapes of giant leaves and the thick trunks of trees towering unbelievably high before completely covering the sky. She saw flowers with blooms as big as her head, or as small as his thumbnail; blooms that stank like bad meat, or smelled like a breeze from Heaven itself. She forced her eyes to study a flower's complexity in order to calm herself, and slowly her heart cooled, her breathing calmed.

She listened to the distant sounds of the jungle approaching twilight: mysterious screechings and hissings. She lay perfectly still, wholly relaxed, so that the sounds of the primeval forest felt like a deep lake that she sank in, deeper with each beat of her heart.

Her stomach growled again. Priscella realized that she couldn't stay in this nest of fallen trees forever.

Perhaps the carpet of moss she had slept on was hallucinogenic, and had rubbed into her skin, worked into her blood and brain, resulting in bad dreams. But now she needed to explore this land and see if she could find a better shelter. This one was adequate only for short-term huddling.

She got up and started walking, turning back to see the nest one last time. If she found nothing better, she could always return.

Priscella started the next day wandering idly, like a woman in a daze. Everything she saw was new and strange and somehow full of beauty, and yet it was a poisoned beauty, tainted by an edge of ferocity and danger.

To satisfy her hunger she located a fallen cycad cone. It looked fleshy, and had an edible look to it. She had no fire, and wouldn't for at least some time, so she bit down on it raw, and found the taste chewy, almost rubbery. The flavor was foreign, but tolerable. She swallowed.

Her body craved meat, and she realized that she would require far more food than normal. Engaging in strenuous activity would consume more calories than usual and so she would have to eat more than usual in order to remain healthy and active. Here was far from the land she had known, but she could survive here, as difficult as it would be sometimes. In order to survive she would have to eat anything as it became available, regardless of the source, so long as it would not sicken her.

The will to survive; it was her best trait. There were times when she had awoken in chambers within the Hall of Doom, fully in control; her other self submerged beneath her consciousness. Even then, she kept silent, and did not attempt to warn the world about what the Legion was planning or their current location. In such instances, she adequately feigned the mannerisms of her other persona, and the other Legionaries saw nothing out of the ordinary. To do otherwise would have meant her imprisonment or death.

The same was true in this situation: she would have do what was necessary, learn a pattern and copy it exactly. Some knowledge, or some instinct less than knowledge but just as sure, told her that the persona inside her, the costumed villainess, desired her death, lusted for it. Even more important as surviving would keeping her other self contained, but here that was easy.

She knew what caused her loss of control over to her other self: mirrors and other reflective surfaces. To look upon herself even for a single moment was often enough to trigger the transformation, and she would no longer be herself for an indeterminate duration. In this way it was almost a relief to be here, in these wild surroundings: there were no mirrors here. Without the power of reflection, not only would the other remain trapped, but she couldn't see how she looked now. She didn't want to.

She spent the rest of the second day gathering more cycad cones. She would make a stockpile of them until she found a better food source.

* * *

The next day she came across the decaying remains of a flying pterosaur; beak open and tongue lolling out as if in accusation.

Its flesh was too far decayed to eat, it would be rank and far too cold, but she quickly found something else of the carcass that could be of use to her. Its jawbone was serrated like a kitchen knife, and would be ideal for her needs.

Idly she looked at the wings, and an idea crept into her mind. Perhaps they too could be of some use? Perhaps she could fashion a crude...

No, it was absurd. She knew nothing of the necessary science of aerodynamics for such an invention. Besides, the wings of the flying reptile had been rendered significantly threadbare, either by the the scavengers of the jungle, or the actions of the pilfering maggots and other insects.

She gripped the jawbone's mandible and pulled it free. Its weight was light, but it would serve.

Using her new blade, she hacked and tore branches free from the surrounding foliage until she had a dozen good-sized limbs in which to fortify her lair. Dragging the limbs back to the spot where she had rested the previous night, she set to work.

By the time she was finished, her hands were cut and scraped, her muscles throbbed, and her legs shook with fatigue. As a reward, she ate more cyad cones, though they now tasted truly bland and unfulfilling. It seemed that a strange hunger was at work within her from the moment she had arrived. She could not fully understand it, but she could not dismiss it.

Right now she had a craving for meat, and so she spent the rest of the day hunting the small creatures that inhabited the undergrowth of the jungle. She found it to be difficult task that would challenge her reflexes and agility.

She spent what seemed to be hours, kneeling in the undergrowth, lunging, missing, lunging and again, missing. Finally she snatched up a small reptile, catching it by cupping her hands and pouncing forward.

She griped it firmly, and with one quick twist broke its neck. She then brought it close to her face. When she tasted skin-the first skin except her own that her tongue had come in contact with since her arrival, she wanted that flesh.

And she bit down.

Her teeth tore through the skin, and for an instant, before the warm, sticky blood entered her mouth, and in that infinitesimal space of time there was total clarity, an absence of forgetfulness and fear. For a few seconds she felt good, and then her mind caught up with her body.

The water of the font grew dark, as crimson as her sour, salty blood, and the music of the spheres was obliterated by her scream, a sound as harsh and shocking as the feeling in her teeth they scraped against bone. The taste and the anxiety were too much for her, and she immediately vomited up a copious quantity of the meat mixed with bile.

It was then that she stopped. It was that feeling again. The aura of rightfulness and superiority. She turned her head to meet the one that she expected to be there.

"You see?" the armored being said."There is food all around, if one is bold enough, and hungry enough to take it."

She didn't reply, her eyes locked on him. Although she hadn't been aware of him before, his sudden presence neither startled nor frightened her. Somehow, she had expected him.

The specter turned to leave, and added: "A mixture of charred bamboo and water will cure your upset stomach."

Calming herself she ate the rest of the meat. She chewed it slowly and swallowed it. She felt nauseated, but underneath the nausea was hunger brought on by having gone so long without meat, and though the small creature was stringy and had an odd favor, it was no less a feast for it. It was food, real food.

* * *

On what she estimated to be the fifth day, after an hour of traveling and the beginnings of a light rain, she found the village.

The jungle opened up to a small settlement, arranged in a circular formation, with an artificial mound of stone forming the epicenter. Several small huts, all similar in design and simple bamboo and grass, comprised the circle. Sharpened pieces of bamboo were randomly placed along the rooftops of the huts.

She noted that there were woven baskets filled with fruit, and freshly-milled grain. The inhabitants had left quickly, though for what reason was a mystery to her.

She made her way to the center of the village, and stood before the platform of rough-hewn stone, an altar it seemed. Upon it was a small clay cup containing a liquid that smelled vaguely alcoholic. She picked it up and considered taking a small sip.

There was a rustle of cape, and the Warlord was standing near the altar. His sudden appearances and disappearances were soon becoming familiar to her, and it only startled slightly. She decided that directness was the best course.

"Then there were people here?" she asked.

"There still are. Scattered tribes in the wilderness," the being answered. "They fled the area when they sensed my arrival."

"Are they..." She swallowed. "Are they...human?"

"You could breed with them," the Warlord said.

"Then they could help me, they could aid me...I." she started to say.

"They would fall upon you. You are an outsider. Even if you were not, you are a female of the ideal age, and thus valuable to the growth and survival of the tribe."

She quickly the changed the subject, asking "What is in this cup?" She lifted the clay goblet.

"A local beverage," the Warlord answered.

She looked down into the depths of the cup. The liquid was black, blood-like, almost like crude oil.

"Is that blood?" she asked.

"No," the being answered. "It is an extract from the ironwood tree. The young men take it before they set out upon some great task. That portion that you have is likely to be the only one you are likely to taste."

"And what does it to them?" she asked.

"Makes them what they need to be," the Warlord answered "Enhances the senses, heightens the reflexes, and strengthens the hunting arm..."

She eagerly drained the mug. The liquid stung angrily in her throat, but she refused to choke on it. Tears welled in her eyes, but she drank it all the same. It filled her with a slight alcoholic warmth, and it had been so long since she had last experienced that feeling.

"...as well as induce visions, I might add." the being said.

Instantly she was hit by a wave of slight nausea. Her knees bent; her arms stiffened and drew up. Everything twisted, converging and separating in a mindless, dizzying pattern.

* * *

The effects of the drink took her to a place deep within herself.

Directly in front of her a wall of jagged mountains could be seen towering to the height of the black and gray clouds, with the vast battlefield covered in red dust filling the distance between them. She could see neither the beginning nor the end of the wall's immeasurable width. Plumes of black smoke and fire rose from the tops of the mountains, polluting the gray skies overhead.

Only a few dozen feet away she saw in a clearing of rubble a battle of armies. Bodies were strewn in bloody heaps, and the trash of battle lay scattered about her feet: swords and spears, crushed helmets, battered shields, breastplates. And other things. Dead and dying horses, human arms and legs ripped from their sockets, decapitated trunks of bodies.

Repulsed by the butchery around her, she averted her eyes. What drew her attention were the lightly-built warriors who were instigators of his battle.

There were three of them-lithe warriors. They chopped flesh, splintered bone, crushed skulls. They swung gore-splattered axes from side to side with mechanical precision.

Women, all three of them were, dressed in kilt-like skirts of faded leather that shielded their bellies and thighs. On their torsos they wore leather breastplates, each having but a single breast, the other was absent, probably burnt off during childhood.

She had seen these types of women before, hadn't she? In that other life.

Already, even as the sight filled her smoke-stung eyes, she sought to remember where she had seen their like. Priscella simply stared in horrified fascination as the three women fought the pathetic remnants of what was once a regiment of armored men. Both sides battled with ancient weapons in the streets of a dying settlement, one that must have been impressive but now was gutted and ruined as though by war. Large, yellow-bathed statutes overlooked the chaos from high pedestals. Despite the devastation and the thick haze, Priscella knew that the structures once had been extremely elaborate in style: ivory-colored palaces, colonnaded council building and sleek ionic pillars with cornices and scrolls...

It was _definitely_ a style that she had seen before.

As the battle went on, the women caught screaming peasants from the rubble, savaging them like animals. Some of the victim managed to elude their attackers momentarily but inevitably fell prey. A black-bearded warrior begged for mercy, the blood oozing from a gash in his belly. Mercy that was denied to him.

Hearing a murmur, she turned to a doorway where huddled a woman, cradling her child in fear. She began to beg for her son's life. Her pleas were answered by the fighting female's sword. The warrior-woman then picked up the bundle, ripping off the cloth to be certain of the child's gender.

_They're after the male children_, she realized, and turned away, not wanting to witness the infant's death.

When they were finished with the slaughter, one of them took up a torch and laughed as she began to set fire to anything that would burn-drapes, wood, hay, even the bodies of the fallen ignited at the touch of her torch.

Having finished the arson, she saw them throw back their heads to raise their voices to give a war cry. It did not sound like a human cry of triumph, but rather a bestial mad wailing.

It was the most terrible and powerful sound she'd ever heard.

She could only stand and watch as the settlement around them burned, the firelight reflecting in her eyes. This was a scene of Hell, the heat unbearable. The sky glowing orange and angry, the smoke blanketing the entire village.

They stood still, as if surprised by Priscella's presence here. Had the women been cats, their hair would have bristled.

The women stared at Priscella with intense interest, stealing sidelong glances at one another and communicating in subtle gestures or nods. Their surprise gave way to delight, and as one they smiled and slowly circled her like hungry wolves.

Priscella held out a hand imploringly, as one would calm a skittish horse, and she opened her mouth to speak. _Please, I am like you. I am not a man._ _I am not the enemy._ But the words caught in her throat, unable to be vocalized in this nightmare.

Almost without effort, one of them lashed out with the back of her hand. The force of the impact almost unhinged her jaw. Stinging flashes of pain up the inside of her skull; nausea and dizziness welled up like a black geyser behind her eyes.

Another one raised her saber, and with casual strength, struck Priscella in the flat of the blade.

She had fought one of their kind before, many times. She fought them now. Her every blow was deflected, her pain making her movement clumsy. They easily evaded her, striking her blind-spots until she was knocked to the blood-stained earth.

She looked up to see the tallest Amazon raise her sword high, like an executioner. Priscella froze, held by pain and fear. The warrior-woman brought down the sword, and she saw it glimmer in the sunlight only a moment before it sliced into her left arm, just below her elbow.

Waves of convulsing agony ushered her into the darkness.

* * *

She came fully awake at the edge of the altar. With slitted eyes, she searched the black gloom for life.

Nothing moved in the darkness, and no sound broke the stillness. Usually the jungle was filled with noises and shapes, and now there was nothing. She levered herself up on one arm, her other hand reaching for her jawbone knife.

Something was wrong, she knew. She searched the gloom again-and then she saw it.

The armored being was there, crouched and staring off into the jungles surrounding the deserted village. He had waited for her to awaken from her nightmare, patient as a spouse.

Soundlessly as a cat, Priscella rose to her feet and padded to top of the stone mound.

"Do you dream?" he asked, turning in her direction. "Do you dream of pleasant things?"

"Yes I dream," she replied. _But they could be hardly be called pleasant._

"Give me-tell me about your dreams." Was that a note of urgency in his voice?

Unwilling to question the order, she described her dream to him.

"War," she finished. "War and death."

"War," the armored being replied. "War can have a purpose. War can have a point, and it is never small nor petty."

Priscella sighed, and stated her own thought. "Those familiar women, they were, I believe that they were Amazons...?"

"Like your adversary?" the being asked.

"No," she shook her head. "They were savage, violent. Not like Wonder-Woman at all."

"Are you so certain of that?" the being asked, and then rose to his feet and walked off into the jungle, leaving the question hanging in the air for her to consider.

* * *

Each day, finding food became less of a problem; there was no shortage of edible flesh in these lands. Through trial and error, she taught herself self-sufficiency, how to catch her own prey, how to forage and scavenge and make do with what was at hand and thereby avoid starvation. To supply her with meat there were frogs, turtles, or at least creatures that resembled their primitive counterparts. At first, eating them had revolted her, but now she gagged them down with minimal difficulty, learning to hold her nose, chew quickly and swallow with water.

Sometimes after the sun had fallen she managed to light a fire in which to roast her food, though eating them raw became more and more preferable, and would entail less risk of being seen by the predators that stalked the night.

At the stream she dug for freshwater clams or caught fish. She learned to avoid the deeper areas of the river, the places where crocodilians often laid in wait, members of a larger species than the ones that dwelled in the swamp where the Hall had resided.

Some days she would catch a few large lizards, taking more than their meat, but also their scaled hides which she learned to strip and tan, and bind them into cloth for protection. Their teeth and claws she added to the tips of her gloves. For additional nutrition she dug for edible tubers or foraged for some of the jungle's foul-smelling fruit.

After a nearly-fatal incident with dysentery that lasted for several days, she learned to boil her drinking water whenever possible. She never became ill after that, for she also found among the wild ferns and clinging vines herbs of all kinds: alliums, apiales and rosales.

That was the healing side of her new pharmaceutical knowledge, but there was also a destructive side. She learned to make poisons from the plants and animals of the jungle, some paralyzed, while others killed instantly.

She kept track of her finds by notching illustration into the hilt of her jawbone knife. She had the bone set in haft of seasoned hardwood with resin glue and wrapped it tight with strands of her hair. The hilt now served as a prescription stick of useful plants.

She used some of the herbs to make bitter teas that helped stimulate her on some mornings, and would give strange dreams when ingested before she slept.

And every night she would fall asleep from the fatigue from moving ceaselessly for hours and expending extraordinary concentration to read the almost invisible tracks, and when she slept she dreamed of the plain of ash and the warrior who fought upon it.

* * *

At the end of her second week, she found the city.

It came into focus so suddenly that she almost jerked her head back in surprise. For a second she was staring at a normal section of jungle, leafy green boughs gently fluttering in the breeze and the next she could see, twisting its way through the branches, the unmistakable silhouette of a suspension bridge, corrugated metal supports crisscrossing overhead, its girders and foundation now twisted and buckled by a long-ago earthquake, and turned a dull gray. Her eye followed the curve and she saw it dip out of sight behind the trees; then, further ahead, it rose again, and she had an impression as of some huge beast crouched behind the jungles, watching, waiting. She shook her head and blinked, and despite the heat of the day she shivered.

There were large tracks of jungle suddenly interrupted by concrete, mammoth structures that blended into the jungle, overgrown with trees and suffocating vines.

She walked past countless remnants of a vast and long untenanted city of pitted concrete and fallen brick. Fragments of old walls shimmered in the undergrowth, masses of pale, crumbled brick forlorn as lost cattle, in other spots the foundations of eroded towers lay exposed, curved and empty as ancient jawbones, choked with parasitic moss. The forest, it seemed has always been part of this place, but over the millennia it had become a destroyer, smothering the elaborate stonework in a mass of snaking foliage. Eventually, the city would be reclaimed, swallowed in great loamy mouthfuls until the last buildings was infiltrated, overgrown, and ruined, until all was enfolded with roots and branches that would patiently unmake even the matchless products of the builders, and return all to damp sand and mud.

Not only the extent of the ruins but their layout gradually manifested itself. As she explored the vine-clad mounds and knolls it became clear that a city had once covered the entire valley. Though heavily overgrown with vines and small trees, it was still possible for her to trace the outlines of decaying buildings of concrete.

Across the jungle-girded plain, new rain-forest crept through where untold centuries before had been carefully manicured parks, crawled over flattened stones and heaps of broken rubble where once reared a great city. To her surprise, this was not a city of tiered ziggurats or columned porticoes, but rather what appeared to her eyes to be one from a contemporary civilization. The toppled towers were dotted with openings, windows that once held glass, and even fallen, they appeared to have once reached hundreds of feet into the sky.

Walking, her footstep dislodged a filthy skull half-buried in the debris of the city's rubble. It was a human skull. She thought for a moment it was that of animal, but when she leaned down and picked it up she saw it was not an animal. It had been human. How long ago it had been human, she could not tell.

There was something distinctly unwholesome about the notion of an bygone ecosystem imposing itself upon what was once a human city.

For a moment she closed her eyes: her mind suddenly shrinking from the sight of it all. How was it possible for her to even be here? She remembered skyscrapers and a world overflowing with people. She remembered machines and power grids and television and ballpoint pens. Now there was jungle, depopulated wilderness, and the cities were fearful, haunted places and there wasn't one human presence.

"Your garment of silk and cotton will not last long here," came a familiar voice from above.

She looked up. The being in spiked armor was there, squatting on the ledge of an ancient column a dozen feet above here, arms wrapped around his knees as the royal train of his black cape swayed gently.

"You will need to replace it with something more suitable before it degrades." he added.

She looked down, it was then that Priscilla noticed the seams in her yellow leotard as if for the very first time. It was frayed from so long in the brush, virtually a collection of rags held together by a few long thongs. Her shoes had long since decayed from immersions in mud. She had been forced to use strips of leather to make crude sandals. The Warlord was right. She would have to find another, or make repairs to it.

"With what?" she asked.

"Something protective," the being replied, "Something that will keep you warm and comfortable."

"Like animal fur?" she inquired.

"Alas," the Warlord said. "There are few such species upon this continent. But if you would wear the pelt of such a creature I can tell you where you might find one."

She considered this for a moment, and then nodded.

"Like you, it is a foreigner here." The being paused for a moment, and she felt a tingle in her right temple, as though he was mentally touching a portion of her brain. "I have imparted to you a certain knowledge of the lay of the land, enough to get you to where the creature is and back."

And she did, she saw it clear in her mind, the necessary trails and the local landmarks in the brush. Along with the knowledge came a compulsion to find it.

Wordlessly, she turned to her left and started walking.

* * *

Priscella pressed onward and upward for half a day. The landscape of the jungle changed, becoming rockier with more stone outcroppings. The brush became smaller, more scanty. She came to a cleft, a shallow indentation, a fold in the rock of the mountain.

A waterfall at least two hundred feet from the valley floor cascaded heavily from the cliff-face. And below that, slightly to one side, a fissure disappeared into darkness. On either side of the cleft, two jagged outcroppings extended from the protruding rock.

Finally she crested the ledge and stood before the entrance of the cavern.

It took her a little time and then Priscella crouched deep within the cave, staring at a tunnel that seemed to lead deep into the mountain. Silently she crouched, holding a steady position ten feet from the cave entrance.

Looking at the walls, she noticed where the granite had been disturbed by something passing this way. And when she reached out, she lightly touched where the faint indentations there: marks where claws had met stone.

It was a strange sensation, almost like stepping into a bath of cold water. The sun had warmed her back but her face and the front of her felt the dampness and her nostrils the scent of decay. She could now see the carcass of the large reptile lying half-in and half-out of the shadows. Its head had been eaten, but the rest seemed relatively intact. She saw other things as well in the gloom of the cave's mouth: a few bones of small animals. She recognized a thigh bone of something and farther back a ribcage.

Once within the shadows, the clamminess and cold completely enveloped her. She saw nothing move, but she sensed rather than saw, that the cave went back into vast depths into the earth. She took a few steps back-she dared not turn her back on this place-once again she stood in the warmth of the sun.

It was then that she heard the fainest scratching noise from the interior of the cave and realized with certainty that something was watching her. Her nerve nearly snapped, but if she gave in to the fear, it could be fatal.

She had the strength and fortitude to at least retain her courage, her one frail defense against the possible threat.

It was then that something huge, dark and frightening suddenly and silently loomed out of the shadowed granite before her.

It was very big, the size of a horse. Though the light was gone, some peculiar sheen on the darkness showed her the faint drapplings along its back, its neck, which was longer than expected, the narrow ruff about its head. Its eyes were luminous, and gray as the death of light.

Leopard! Or nightmare spawn of leopard and prehistory. The gargantuan creature shambled forth from the darkness. Gravel crunched beneath taloned tread as it stalked forward, a behemoth more than double the stature of its fearsome descendant. Dripping jaws yawned hungrily in a cough of challenge-sabertoothed jaws that could close upon Priscilla as a cat snapped a mouse.

The sabertooth coughed angrily and advanced a step, tail twitching. She kept moving, taking sideways steps in opposition to the large feline. Its throaty growl and the ropes of drool that hung from its opened jaws spoke of its terrible hunger, and she tried not to think of being ripped apart by its fangs.

Priscella didn't wait for the beast to decide upon a course of action. She acted first. She rushed it, leaping upon it before it could completely judge the meaning of her movements. Priscella drew her jawbone knife—six inches of serrated bone—and she completed her jump, closing the distance before the creature could react. The blade struck true and tore away, a gout of blood erupting from its ribs.

Letting loose a killing scream, it reacted by leaping at Priscilla's shoulder. Jaws locked on her shoulder, the feline raked furiously against her back, talons tearing deep gashes. The beast had struck deep, and returned the rage but Priscilla anticipated the blow, raising her shoulder and arm to block a clawed paw. And then they were tumbling again, a battle of beasts, lightning-quick blows lashing through a mist of rage as they battled.

Blows were blinding, delivered and received in a tide of flashing blood as they fought face-to-face. Priscella dimly realized that she was losing the titanic battle and with desperation roaring in her head grabbed the beast by the neck.

She hurled it back with hate, then closed in on it, smashing it over the stones, and as they rolled again the rock rose and fell in a blood-red holocaust of wrath that separated her from this world, from all she had ever known.

Priscilla babbled insanely, cursing in pain, with fury. The words made no sense. They sounded angry, wild and disconnected—a choking death rattle like she was strangling on her own saliva.

She then locked her teeth around the cat's ear and ripped away its stump. Blood poured over her body, made a slippery mat of crimson fur. Blood rushed from the beast's ear, flowing beyond Priscilla's lips into her mouth and over her taste-buds. The taste was pleasant, invigorating.

Renewed she howled and pounded the feline's skull against stone. She dug her knees into the creature's ribs and clamped heels astride the sabertooth's back under its belly. The beast tried to roll, to dislodge her, but it could not.

She raised her knife and struck in a red rage, again and again until the beast beneath her fell suddenly. still. Still and dead.

Priscilla crouched beside the carcass, unconsciously guarding her kill in the same way as any wild animal protecting its prey. Her breaths came shallow and quick; her heart pounded rapidly. Gradually she felt the terror and exhaustion ebbing from her.

Her senses were honed. The coppery-sweet scent of blood rose to fill her nostrils. She had never known a smell so acute, so intense. It was as if every molecule of air had been saturated with the aroma, and that aroma then packed into every crevice and cavity within her head. The scent-the taste-blood, thick, warm, satisfying blood.

She then remembered just how hungry she was after her trek. Ravenous, in fact. Using the talons she had acquired from her earlier kills, Priscilla sliced open the animal's cheat, and a steamy mist arose from the opening when the warm entrails were touched by the cool air; an enticing aroma. She continued cutting until the animal was sliced from sternum to crotch, then from hip to hip. blood quickly seeped through the deep cross. The flaps were separated and then pulled back.

Fingers, already crimson, reached inside the abdominal cavity and pulled the viscera out onto the ground. She removed the organs, cutting where necessary, and placed them on them on rocks where they glistened and steamed. From previous experience she had learned to go for the liver and the heart and was cautious to avoid rupturing the intestines so as not to contaminate the meat.

She pulled her hands from the corpse, the interior flesh squelchy, streaky slivers caught in the claws, and raised them over her head again. She looked at her fingers, at the blood on their tips as if hypnotized and then raised them slowly to her mouth and licked them clean.

She plunged her gloved hand into the bruised and bloody chest, pulling out the heart, raw, warm and red.

She bit down. She had killed this animal, torn apart herself, gotten its blood on her hands, felt the grain and give of its muscles. Now she was eating it. She couldn't make herself stop.

She had finished, her belly felt overfull. It was the strangest sensation, this ballooning inside, the sudden rush of nausea. The thrill of the battle still vibrated through her. She hadn't remembered feeling so much alive. Right now, she felt invincible.

As though reminding her of her vulnerability, pain that lanced through her shoulder where she had been bit, and she clenched a fist in response. Bending her head to her chest, Priscilla moaned. Scarlet dripped from her gouged shoulder. She looked at the brush and quickly found a number of plants that she could use to dull the pain. She then carefully picked the leaves and put them in her mouth, chewing them raw. Their taste was dry and bitter, and she would probably suffer from further indigestion but for now she would have to endure.

Within minutes the pain faded.

Where there had been a communicative chorus of bird calls, there was now an unnatural quiet. She knelt a long time, everything forgotten in the pain, the place, the battle.

Her lids grew heavy. Her forehead fell forward slightly. If she could be still and sleep, everything would pass into dream. Then began to fade, very slowly, until they had disappeared again into blackness.

* * *

Time passed. Dark and dark, and then fragments of a thousand dreams, spun into focus for a brief glimpse before spinning away. Images of the warrior in spiked armor battling on an island of dead men, broken lances, and shattered firearms in a sea of darkening blood, black cape fluttering. He had the perfect stillness of an assassin at rest with his conscience. No doubts, no mercy, no hesitation sullied his thoughts. He appeared to be death's favored heir. A part of her envied his power, and in him she recognized a murderous aspect of herself. She saw nations toppled, rulers crying out for mercy that was denied them, heroes who had been the hope of their people falling before this one who mocked them as they died. The stench of billions of dead filled the air. Corpses covered the land, the streets, the hidden places. In orbit around this one figure, men fought and slaughtered each other without mercy.

She dreamed of this world's history, the world as it was. She dreamed of the great cities, towers that once rose into the sky tilting and crumbling into the sea. She saw its monuments collasping to become massive graveyards of broken concrete and twisted steel. They stretched to the horizon and were attended by flocks of pterosaurs flying over those cities, wings spread in triumph, so numerous that, in flight, they blackened the sky.

Warm blood from her back wound awakened her-or maybe it was the deep cut on her shoulder that screamed for attention. Pain could be ignored, but the wound would have to be very carefully tended. Just as food would have to be attentively protected and harbored; it would be endless work to stay alive, but today she truly proven that the predators of this place were mortal and could be killed by her.

It was now deep night. The darkness, even after the long hours of it, still felt like a balm to Priscella, as if the brightness of spilling blood that she had done had scorched her retinas and made sunlight agony to her. Her eyes dilated until she could see almost as well in the dark as in the day, and she began to curve off chunks of the large cat's flesh to eat. The remains of the sabertooth would last for several days if carefully rationed.

The need to eat satisfied for now, she began making incisions into the carcass hide. She would take the creature's head for her head-covering, she decided.

It took her a while to get to sleep again that night, with so many small annoying mysteries on her mind. Finally she did manage to drift off, although her sleep was shallow and troubled by ominous and shadowy dreams.

* * *

She returned to the city where where scrub and vine and forest had invaded. More than another century would pass before the last mound of shattered wall would vanish beneath the conquering jungle. Still, of all the places she had visited, this place, forsaken as it may be, was the closest thing to human civilization. She reasoned that such a place would be the logical site for an encampment, if not habitation for the tribes the Warlord spoke of. This would be where she would dwell and try to see if she could contact them and perhaps receive aid. In the meanwhile, these crumbling edifices would protect her from the elements during the night while she hunted and scavenged the surrounding jungle.

In one hollow she carefully gathered together a nest of branches, and as she laid her few belongings, a clump of ancient concrete shifted under her foot, and at the sound a dark shape reared up about twenty feet away.

It was standing there. She had mistaken it for two free-standing pillars, but those pillars were legs, legs longer and thicker than her entire body. The beast's skin was dark gray, a shade similar to the weathered building behind it. This, combined with its height, its immobility, and her distracted state, had made it invisible to her.

She saw it now in profile, huge, partly concealed by the morning fog. Its huge jaws were open slightly, its teeth were between fourteen and seventeen inches long.

It then turned towards her and she looked into its wide, mottled expressionless face, the color of bark, ridged and bruised. It turned its head to the side to see her, its one eye golden irises. It was peering down at her from a height of over twenty feet.

It was immense; its single stride measuring out to her dozen, a living engine of hunger, flashing teeth, leathered hide and fury. In a flash, she imagined she could read its mind; imagined that she could see herself through its eyes as it saw her: as prey. To it, she was nothing but a rodent, wholly insignificant except as a convenient snack it would gladly snatch up. She had never felt so vulnerable, so completely naked and defenseless against this prehistoric tyrant. Her heart beat in her chest, bringing a warmth that might have been abject terror to her face, her chest, her hands.

Any moment now it would lunge for her, in seconds it would be over. She imagined those clutching, two-fingered claws reaching for her, those terrible jaws yawning above her and snapping her up whole. One lunge and she would be in its jaws. One bite and she would be gone.

She prepared to run anyway.

Then the beast turned its head in the opposite direction and walked away, in a posture that suggested indifference.

For a long minute she stood motionless, stricken and speechless.

"You are fortunate," said a familiar voice behind her. She turned, seeing the armored form of the Warlord standing straight, facing the spot where the creature had been standing moments before.

"How many of your kind can say that you looked the king of beasts in the eye, and was considered, found wanting and then rejected?" he went on to say. "The beast is territorial, and will guard this place from rival predators. You could do worse than accepting the protection it offers."

She nodded, saying nothing, feeling a powerful sense of exhilaration, an all-encompassing pleasure like nothing she had ever experienced before. She could have been killed, but she was not. She could have been eaten, but hadn't.

* * *

In the days that followed she learned to follow the large reptilian beast when it roamed, its hunting ground the entirety of the city ruins. After it brought down prey it would begin eating it right there and when it had finished Priscella set it upon it, for she was now a scavenger as well as a hunteress.

One day she came across one of his recent kills: a forty-foot theropod, much like the tyrant-king himself, though this beast had long narrow jaws and hook-like fore-claws. The battle must have occurred during the night, or the very early morning, the creature's organs had ceased steaming. The flesh was torn into narrow ribbons and pecked as if a thousand birds had been at it. Perhaps they had. She knew from experience that the winged reptiles and carrion birds fed by scavenging. It was a new dining habit that she herself was slowly learning to utilize.

The odor brought a savory taste to her tongue and she had the urge to go to the body of the fallen giant and smell it, to stoop and drink its blood and eat its flesh. She knew it would be far preferable to the tiny amphibians and reptiles that was her normal staple.

She reminded herself that she only came for a strip of its hide, and that was exactly what she was going to do. She found a flap of lacerated skin and pulled it free. Before leaving she also dug out the long hook-like claws of the forearms, and several teeth from its open jaws. Turning, she journeyed back to her lair in the ruins.

Settling in, she thought to herself. _Yes, something new._ Using splinters of bone and threaded intestines, she began to sew sections of hide, piercing it with large, crude stitch-work and adding them to where the costume had torn. She was clumsy at sewing, but adequate to the purpose. For some reason she knew that her clumsiness would only add to the effect she sought to achieve. When she was finished she had fashioned two gauntlets from the hides and claws of the fallen titan. The gloves were sewn together and heavily interlaced with patterned stitches made of sinew and gut thread, giving it a very elegant, patchwork appearance. The creature's teeth were attached to the fingers of the gauntlets, forming blades of sickle-length.

The beast who dwelled in the ruins was powerful. It was meant to feared, though not by Priscella. She had something in common with it. She liked its appearance, and appreciated his protection. Had it not been there, the other smaller carnivore would likely have made her its morning meal.

As she worked her thoughts turned again the unaccountable eeriness of the place, particularly the beasts that inhabited it. They were quick and energetic, not waiting for the dawn's rays to warm their blood. They didn't drag their tails, nor crawl on their bellies like the lizards she often caught.

How did they all relate to the apparently modern city situated in these steaming jungles? In the beginning she suspected that she had gone back in time, now it seemed that she was transported to a place in the process of a backwards history, the remnants of a future society being consumed by an imminent past. What had happened here, to this world?

She decided to find out, and so Priscella prepared herself for a journey.

* * *

After her encounter with the large carnivore, she took her explorations further. In this place, she was free to roam. If this continent was her prison, it was a prison without walls, where she could freely explore as she willed. The only thing she could not to go to return to her world again.

Without a mount or vehicle, it would be insanity to leave the ruin and strike out across the jungle's breadth, but she was determined to risk it. She treked past the region's jungles and savannas. The north was bordered by jagged mountains, and the south by impassable lands of parched desert where only hardy black cycads survived. She visited a sauropod graveyard, and found natural gardens of unimaginable colors and forms: blue moss, sulphur yellow, and bright pink.

She found other ruined settlements, and occasionally found more abandoned villages. She was beginning to suspect that the Warlord was responsible, that he was deliberately keeping her isolated from other intelligent beings. Or perhaps it was just unfortunate timing. She couldn't be certain.

After weeks of travel, gathering items and living off the land, she returned to her lair in the ruined city that was familiar to her. Why she felt such attachment was unknown. It was almost as if she somehow remembered the city when it was new and whole and gleaming...

But that was impossible, crazy..

One thing was certain. With the tyrant-king cohabiting the ruins, none of the human tribes would come near. It was clear to Priscella now that such bands of humans once lived in these cities, but were driven out by some calamity, the same event that brought the jungles and the beasts that dwelled in them.

In all her exploration, for all the time she spent there, she never found anything on what the builders of the city were like. While she found a stone building place that might have been a library, all of the book-like objects it contained had mostly crumbled to dust, the ink had faded to illegibility, even if she could have read the written language.

Baffled by the mystery she found herself returning to her old lair, where the garment she was making had waited for her. It was made from bits of hides; both reptilian and mammal, as well as the feathers of jungle birds, hung with uncut gems and miscellaneous bits to construct a kind of patchwork, cowled costume.

In the beginning, she had wrestled with problems of the garment's weight and size and texture until she ended the day in screams of frustration, but now she had determined exactly what was needed. Having returned, she began working in earnest, working through the daylight hours and by firelight, laboring to build upon the simple crafting, tanning and sewing skills she'd learned, experimenting, failing, adding slowly to the costume she had in mind.

The seasons passed, and the garment she was building slowly approached the perfection for which she originally strove for.

When she was finished, she vowed that she would never take it off. She wanted to believe that this garment was her skin, as completely a part of her as her own flesh.

* * *

There was only one day and then a night, followed by another day. There was only this limbo where there was only the rising and setting of the sun, the phases of the moon, and the buildings, and the constant hunger and the means to satisfy that hunger.

She rarely saw the armored warrior anymore. In the beginning he would appear periodically to speak with her, to provide a bit of advice or tell her of some different means to resolving a problem of survival.

Now he appeared to have left her to her own devices, or something had happened to him; perhaps he had been called to other duties.

On occasion she thought she heard a sound like the flutter of his cape, and other times she would find fresh eggs or a newly-killed animal in plain sight; possibly left by him.

While always slight of frame, her new diet and the constant exertion was causing her body to convert useless fat into muscle. That and the culmination of months of experimentation with certain herbs and plants seemed to be having a beneficial effect on her metabolism. She felt stronger, faster, healthier than she ever had been. But strength and speed was not enough. Such things had to be used correctly, used in conjunction with timing and coordination.

That first night when she had awoke in the morning and found the Warlord watching her, she began to suspect the dreams were not of her own making. Planting dream images was likely one of the simpler abilities that one such as he possessed. But the dreams occurred whether he was present or not, and now she doubted.

The dreams were fragments, sharp and imperfect, like segments of a puzzle, or pieces of a broken mirror, interspersed with deadened periods of unconsciousness. In dreams she would see him battle, watch him with undivided attention, and upon awakening she attempted to copy his fighting form. Her early efforts were clumsy, uncertain, but with repeated practice her movements became faster and her punches and kicks felt stronger.

During her long practice sessions she no longer felt the heat or heard the sounds of the jungle. She moved in a dazed, exhausted state, functioning between sleep and waking. When she had finished she would drop to her knees in exhaustion and push to her feet, and continue.

When she finally finished she would stumble towards her lair and kneel over the costume upon which she constantly labored, babbling under breath entreaties and incoherent chants.

There were times she was laboring over her garment, she had feeling of detachment that someone else were going through the motions of tanning and sewing, using her fingers as her fingers used the bone-needle and sinew-thread. Someone else, who thought with casual cruelty, how sharp the new talons were, how easily they would rend flesh. It was an uncanny experience, watching herself perform the task, but one she attributed to the various jungle plants that she ingested as stimulants and just general exhaustion. It was strange, but not frightening; a drug-induced euphoria leaving her mind dreamy and languid.

Her hands worked machine-like for hours over the hide, cutting it into precise dimensions her mind remembered with photographic clarity. And all the while her mind looked on bemused, drifting in a rosy haze of day-dreams, uncaring.

She awoke to find herself mumbling, some prayer or chant, and she looked down to find that she had worked to curve strange glyphs and symbols into the fabric of the garment. After so many hours, so many months of work, she finally looked down on it. It was nearly complete. Her hands and wrists and arms were aching with an agonized exhaustion. She ran her hands that felt like fleshless claws over it.

* * *

When she had finished, she sat near her nest's edge, wondering what month this might be, what month in what year. How many days and weeks had she been here? At first, she scratched marks on stone to keep track of the passing time, but after only a few dozen marks she forgot one day, and then another, and when she finally remembered, she found she was uncertain how many days had come and gone during her forgetfulness. It was then she came to understood the futility of counting days in this place - indeed, the futility of the very concept of time. Didn't someone a long time ago mention something about time, as in time differentials? Who said it? Someone she knew once?

Something else nagged at her. Each day, she noticed, her senses were becoming more acute, her eyes adjusting to a keeness that she hadn't experienced in her lifetime. There was a fresh acuity for tracking, and she could now read the faintest trails unaided. She could see distant ridges clearly. And she knew that her senses would sharpen even more as her stay progressed. Perhaps it had something to do with her new diet, some herb that she had ingested? Or maybe it was that first drink in the ruined village? She had never experienced anything it, and she wondered how she could get more.

* * *

The jungle and plain and mountains went silent and perfectly still for what seemed like centuries, as if waiting.

She walked outside and turned her head towards the sky, as the clouds began to swirl in a counter-clockwise formation above the plain. She watched as a small beacon of golden light streaked across the southern sky, trailing through the clouds like a comet, growing bright as it finally came within sight of the ruins. It moved here and there, curving in its course, casting its yellow glow upon the fallen bodies of the city's towers as it passed.

With a clap of thunder, the comet's engulfing light exploded outward from its core, revealing an enormous ivory chariot with golden emblems and fiery wheels splitting fire in all directions.

Breathless, she waited as the chariot approached, crossing the final distance. She stepped back, fearful of the odd radiance.

At the helm of the chariot was the Warlord.

The chariot landed with the clatter of a distant storm, the wheels of the chariot turning to gold the instant they touched the ground.

He stepped off and walked slowly towards her. Cupped in his hands was a drinking horn of strange design. An ornate cup shaped like winged feline, with the rear half of the body extending up through its wings in the shape of a gilded horn, with a wide and head crowned with a golden crescent moon.

She knelt then. It seemed appropriate somehow. She closed her eyes, inhaling the aroma of the drink. The Warlord pressed the horn to her lips, and the liquid rushed over her tongue with a rapturous taste. In one gulp, it rushed down her throat like a pathogenic fire. The taste was similar to the irontree drink that she had consumed previously in the barbaric village, but now it was more vivid, more refined and she tasted several new ingredients.

A comparison rose up her in her mind, a memory of youth. Communion. The being in armor had been her priest, her mentor, her counselor. She was the acolyte, the disciple and small child who partook of the flesh, and now she was taking the blood.

The Warlord stood after pouring the last of the liquid into her mouth, securing the drinking horn to his side afterward.

The liquid surged through her body. The first drink had made her stronger, heightened her immune system and tightened her reflexes. Now it felt like her heart would explode, and she would not survive this new alteration to her body chemistry.

She swooned and the Warlord's arm shot forth to take hold of her midsection. It felt like she was dying. If that were so, she wanted to tell him so many things, so many questions, so many observations. Things that he had to know, things that she had to say to him.

She opened her mouth and words she wanted to say almost spilled out; she choked on them, shaking. "I..."

"Shhh..." He hissed into her ear, rocking her softly from side to side, as if she was still a small child that had awoken from her night terrors. He cradled her head and neck as one would a newborn infant's, and her every muscle relaxed utterly.

_Whose blood have I drank? Which Lord have I consigned my soul to by doing so?_

It was her last thought before she felt her body betray her by giving up, dropping into his arms and placing her into a very deep sleep.

* * *

There are dreams that are stacked in tiers, and there are dreams that sit one within another. It was in one of these that she found herself.

The liquid in the drinking horn had submerged her mind in waves of darkness that lapped up about her.

Once again she found herself on the battlefield of ash, the toppled columns and arches half-buried in sand. Seared dirt and scattered bricks showed where buildings had been burned and built and burned again. Overhead, carrion reptile-birds swooped overhead, and cawed to each other. The sun burned down hard, like the crimsoned coil of an oven burner. Oppressive heat.

And there before her were the dream Amazons of her third dream. They stood with legs akimbo, proud, arrogant in their imagined predominance in the scheme of things, favored of the Goddess and members of the superior race.

A thirst for vengeance came over her like a hot, black poison in her blood. _I, too, have a god._

The body she possessed in the waking world reflected the one she had here, and she knew that she was stronger now than before. She was far more flexible, and her speed felt equal to her former namesake. She summoned her anger, her hatred of them. It was there within her, no longer faded into a distant memory, but fresh now and begging to be unleashed.

She raked the ground as she watched them approach, forcing dirt deep beneath her claws; she loved the feeling. She was not afraid this time, and now she felt as if she would no longer be afraid ever again.

Priscella had learned to correctly predict their movements and now she instinctively countered them. They would attack without finesse. They would not deceive her, nor use strategy.

One of the Amazons, a slim woman rushed forward fool-hardly, her arm coming back to fling a spear.

Unconsciously, Priscella shrieked in rage at the action, felt the hot graze of the spear as she stepped quickly to the side. Immediately she was upon the woman, striking, striking, striking. She snarled with wild rage, feeling the red tide pounding in her veins as she slashed and hacked at this deadly warrior who thought herself Priscella's better.

The slim Amazon went down and she didn't get back up. Instantly Priscella leaped forward, unclouded by fear, snatching up the Amazon's secondary weapon in the process, a battle-ax.

Whirling to the side, she'd met the strike of the sword with the battle-ax and slashed the Amazon's hand off at the wrist. The stump gouted blood. The amazon bellowed in fury and lashed out with a wild blow of her shield. Priscella ducked and then returned her own, catching her across the face with a clawed hand, leaving narrow furrows.

She blocked the blow meant to cripple her with the haft of her battleknife and brought her jawbone knife plunging through the back of the Amazon's skull.

The last one fell beneath her anger, her rage. There was no hesitation, no fear, as the last Amazon charged, short sword unsheathed and rushing forward. Priscella felt her face contort into a smile at the audacity of this warrior-woman, and she slapped the blade aside with her new battleaxe, and then drove her claws into the Amazon's throat, gripped what lay there and then pulled. Hot blood splashed across her face as the woman was slain, her throat torn out, eyes gazing upward, seeing nothing.

As the Amazon's corpse dropped to the ashen waste, Priscella stood silently, blood dripping from her limbs and weapons. She wet her lips involuntarily, her tongue feeling as sharp as her teeth.

There was nothing so dangerous in all existence as the vicious hate of an enemy returned, and there was no enemy so eager to inflict pain as a woman who once thought herself your inferior. Blow for blow. Measure for measure, the debt had been paid. She had endured a year in the brush for this, clung tenaciously to life with an iron grip. And she had lived to kill them, these three.

_And here is wrath, _said a voice, an enunciated voice that was somehow familiar to her, and yet she could not remember where she had last heard it.

She shook her head and turned to the mountain barrier, and the hole in its middle. It opened up beneath the rock wall, smashed through the buried foundations by some ancient cataclysm, leading in and down like an opened throat waiting to swallow her whole. The entrance was supported by heavy beams of dark wood, and cross-braces kept the mountain from collapsing upon the tunnel. The beams were not freshly cut, but old; here and there they were slick with patches of dark mold and dripping with moisture.

The amazons had been guarding this place, and now they were dead, and what they would keep from her she would take as her prize.

At first she hesitated, as though holding a ceremonial silence before plunging in.

She then heard a violent noise like a huge canvas tarp whipping in the wind. She turned to see it. The sound was the flapping of great wings on a reptilian creature with dead eyes.

It floated before her, leathery wings outstretched on either side and flapping to keep momentum. Sinewy claws tucked in from beneath its body. She could see its scales of its underside, the flesh itself withered, almost skeletal. The most striking feature was the evident decay in the creature's flesh. This creature was clearly already dead, crawling with milk-white maggots

She looked and saw that it was missing its lower jaw.

Not wanting to analyze the significance, Priscella whirled and flung herself into the grim stony entrance of the unexplored cavern in the hillside. As if sensing that its prey was about to elude its grasp, the carrion-bird gave a blood-chilling screech, and came hurtling down upon her, hooked claws ready to seize and tear.

It was black as pitch inside. She had no light of course, the flooring was dry and smooth underfoot, and she cautiously felt her way, wary of stumbling over some unseen obstacle. She could smell the cold, iron-dry smell of the rock itself.

Her breaths came in short panicked hikes and her muscles cramped painfully. She felt her flesh become cold and clammy as sweat filmed her skin. She could hear her heartbeat like the thunder of an industrial hammer and tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. Priscilla breathed deeply, trying to calm herself. She had never had any particular fear of the dark, nor of small spaces, but now, together, they terrified her. She closed her eyes in despair, and she saw no difference.

She was in a tunnel, she thought, and soon she'd reach the far end. In the distance the departure point stood in stark contrast; a sudden glint of bright hazy light. As if a door were slowly being opened.

She pushed herself forward, her shoulders clearing the sides easily. Cold encircled her, dripping. The tunnel smelled dank and dusty, giving her a bitter taste in her mouth. The dimness at the end flickered. It was almost as though someone were coaxing her into the tunnel with a spotlight. The taste of the cave filled her mouth, like suffocational dark dripping all around her; the distant light flickers, dancing.

The light seemed to be inviting her to come dive into it with abandon. Her sense of anticipation deepened as she heard music, singing, conversations, and laughter at the other end, enticing, delightful. It made her want to run full speed to the other end and leap unreservedly into it, losing herself in the wonder beyond.

For her, she realized. For her.

Getting closer, the light was now the most beautiful light she'd ever seen. It was all the sunrises and sunsets she'd ever witnessed, all the golden, sunny, summer days of her childhood, all the colors of sunlight streaming through the multicolored leaves of an autumn forest. She'd soon reach that light, if she hurried; she desperately wanted to get there, to feel that warmth on her body, to bask in it and just let everything go.

She realized that the light was coming from an opening door, and the door was opening wider, flooding the tunnel with that wonderful glow. She had to reach it, she knew, before it closed again. Her forward progress seemed to be slowing…slowing…

The door was wide open, the light so bright it stung her eyes. Beyond the doorway was a suggestion of a fresh and utterly captivating place, resonating with color and beauty. If where she was before was midnight, this was sunrise.

She now saw details. A crowd was visible beyond the passageway and grew with each step she took. Some faces she did not recognize, many she did.

She burst out of the doorway, and when she looked down she saw many tiers of seats descending in a square pattern toward a stage in which she stood. In those seats sat a great multitude of people.

Voices began to cheer.

For her.

_No!_

From the side of the stage stepped the one who they were here for, who they now cheered with enthusiasm: dark-hair as lustrous as silk, star-spangled costume and golden tiara, the latter an ultimate symbol of her power. Her each slight movement was so graceful, so enchanting.

Priscella heard her speak, crystalline. But she couldn't see her face. She wanted to, because the crowd's faces shone with adoration. Just the way one would look at a goddess, she thought with some anger.

_Here I am, standing and proud, _the woman's stance seemed to say. _Let them see me, and hear me and worship me._

She ached to look into her eyes and see how the power of being this goddess was like; to know what the adulation of the masses looked liked when reflected in her eyes.

She begged to see her face, because she saw the rows of worshipers rising and falling like waves at her feet, their faces upturned, arms lifting.

_Do more than see__,_came a voice inside her head, a voice that sounded very much her own, only edged with hatred.

"What?" she asked aloud.

_Claw her face off and take it._

"No," she whispered.

_Hate that face. Hate it terrible. Looks better on you. Take it. __Hands on her before she can react. Clutch quickly. One vicious twist of the head, a liquid snap, a limp body. Then start on the face, the hair, the flesh-_

She wouldn't hear anymore. She ran offstage. All she could do was run.

_Here is envy_, came the same clear voice.

She saw another door and took it, finding herself again in another dank tunnel in the mountain. And just as she closed the door behind her, the instant of jealously vanished quickly.

Why did she have the urge to see that face? She had seen it many times before. The Woman of Wonder's beauty was chaste, like that of a Botticelli madonna, and ethereal. For everyone else who saw her, that beauty inspired neither desire nor envy, but rather reverence and hope.

There was another reason for her flight. She had seen her mother in that crowd, her father as well. Both in the grave for the last five years, never knowing what had happened to their daughter after this fateful night. What would they have thought of her now?

_No time for regrets, Prisclla,_ she told herself and pressed forward in search of another door.

Farther ahead the tunnel turned to the right, and she was aware of descending, a degree every few feet. The tunnel continued to slant downward for a time on a shallow decline, then ran straight for a certain ways. The stonework was warm against her flesh, and she felt the walls change from stone to metal to glass as she moved along. Was she inside her own mind, or had she somehow returned to the place that she was before, the Citadel?

She finally located a heavy door of polished timber at the back of the chamber, and warily pushed it open into the next area, which appeared to be a large counting house, its marble floors as smooth as glass and richly patterned in an intricate mosaic. Dim light filtered through thick stained-glass windows, giving it the atmosphere of an unholy church dedicated to some pagan deity of wealth.

"Greed," she said.

She idly ran a finger over packet of hundred-dollar bills, riffling the crisp edges as she did so. Her other self had been attracted to shining things, such as jewelry and gold. She would never have expected to be in possession of so much money; and she doubted that she would ever find herself with this much again in her life. But when one has lived in the brush for a year, one's priorities change. Once while searching in cave for natural salt in which to preserve her food, she had come across natural wealth in abundance: raw amethyst, gold ore, and some uncut gems. It was wealth enough for her to live comfortably back where she had come from. At the time she had glossed over it for the salt deposits, taking only a few chips of gems for the garment she was constructing. She experienced not even the briefest amazement or delight at the sight of such wealth. Looking at the assembled treasure now, Priscella wondered why she had ever found it desirable, not only by herself but by anyone.

She turned and left the room through a side door.

In the next chamber she found sloth; where the surfaces of the chamber looked as though they were melting, sagging in all variety of curves. She cautiously moved through it, and as she did so the room narrowed ahead of her, walls closing in and ceiling dipping until she had to stoop to pass by. The ceiling touched her head once, and she didn't like the sensation; the rock was smooth, and as warm as living flesh. As she examined the walls and floors more closely, Priscella could see that they resembled sagging, inactive flesh; the occasional pockmark or freckled rash carved into their surfaces. She could not shake the idea that she was walking willingly into the belly of a beast, and now here she was at the base of its esophagus, deep deep down, about to enter its stomach and submit herself to digestion. The walls around her began to contract and then expand. She felt their glistening sides press on her. She was reminded of a person swallowing - and she was the tasty morsel.

With renewed haste, she finally located the next door and moved on to the next section of corridors.

This dream was like following an onion to its core, one layer of mystery at a time.

Entering the next chamber was accomplished by pulling aside the pinkish-red silk curtain dividing this area from the hallway. The experience was like stepping into a mysterious womb. Even so, the scale of the room made a dwarf of her, as if it were made for beings of immense proportions. Rich silk tapestries covered the walls and gently cascaded in a gentle breeze, each ending in a large colorful tassel. Soft, subdued candlelight and a heady aroma of fragrant oils and incense made the atmosphere weigh down upon her. Like islands in an ocean of luxury, pillows and couches of varying sizes made of gold-striped silk were scattered throughout the room. From behind sheer-curtained alcoves came a symphony of sighs, groans, squeals, and cries of pleasures, whispered and growled obscenities, and by a rhythmic rush of heavy breathing in one degree of urgency or another.

_Lust_, she thought. There was no temptation for her here. She never wanted to touch another for love again. Her world was cold; whatever longings she may have once had were dead.

She walked across the length of the room, catching glimpses of activity as she did so. She heard moans and sighs mixed with growls and short panting shrieks, not all the sounds of harmless release.

Finally leaving the harem-like chamber, she again followed dank corridors to more corridors. There was no echo of her steps, and the passageways were warmer than before. The walls had actually become unpleasantly warm to the touch, a strange change from the clinging cold that had infested the place's other rooms.

She did not know what lay ahead, what awaited her, and it should have frightened her, but in this place, slogging through these dark hallways and these chambers representing the sins of humanity, she couldn't help but feel as if this labyrinth was taking her to a place, a memory she had forgotten long ago. She was no longer afraid. When everything was strange, it all had become mundane. If some peril awaited she would face that. She had grown at once more daring and more fatalistic; she had faced too many perils, gambled with her fate too many times to be concerned with one more danger, one more risk.

As she walked an odd sort of ambiance could be heard; a monotonous chant seemed to emanate from the very walls of the stone corridors and archways. Along with the chant, there was a muted but somehow monstrous pulse beat, stirring the air. It was disturbing yet strangely pleasurable. As she walked slowly forward, gazing around in the emptiness, attempting to trace its source. She stopped, turned and looked, and found where it was coming from.

At the far end of the hallway stood a black rectangle, like an archway.

The pulsation, which appeared to emanate from that space, in some unfathomable manner

renewed her energy and strength. She felt more and more drawn towards it, and tempted to plunge into it. It was an abyss of wonderful and unfathomable mystery, awful to contemplate, yet inviting her to dive into it fearlessly, and taste un-sated of its delights.

As she approached she realized that it wasn't an archway but the thing she dreaded most in the world: a mirror, opaque and fathomless and there was no reflection. She could not tell what the true image was, so she leaned forward to peer into the mirror's depths. The mirror reflected nothing but its own dark, glowing self.

Suddenly a new note entered the rhythmic chanting. It became subdued but expectant. Every fiber of her body resonated with something unquantifiable.

She dared to hope that the mirror was something that could show her the door to the life she had misplaced somehow, the life she was supposed to live. It was to be expected, she thought. This was no fairy-tale. There was no wisdom, no beauty. Reflected in the mirror was only...

"Horrors!" she exclaimed quietly, but the air seemed to vibrate around her utterance of the word.

Now it appeared that something needful and malign was pent up in the mirror, beating against some kind of membrane between itself and outside. The reflection whipped and twisted like something being cooked alive on a griddle. Red and amber lights not only shimmered on the surface of the glass but appeared to swarm within it.

At first it was only another patch of darkness; gradually it became something lithe and humanoid, drifting like dust, turning in on itself, churning like a vortex of agitated fury.

Gathering her courage in finality, she asked of the morphic depths a single question: "Who are you?"

In response there came a gentle sigh, the shape writhed and vibrated as if powered by electricity._ "Who are you?" _Stirring in those depths, she heard a voice most terrible; calling her, drawing her to the inevitability.

"_Don't you know? Don't you know?"_ it mocked in a sultry voice. "_Don't you know me?"_

"Who?" her skin crept and her nape hairs tingled at the question. It was as if her dream-body recognized the truth before her mind had reason to believe it.

_"-real you__,__" _it replied.

She shook her head, denying it.

As she stared, unable to tear herself away, the shape coagulated, became something mimicking human form, slim and lean and twany, sinuous as a panther. Its face was female with blue-burning, unblinking eyes. Below those eyes, lips parted in the snarl of hate, showing glittering teeth. The figure was clad in the most unexpected of garments, the very patchwork costume that she had been building piece by piece, and yet here it was complete. It consisted of several, wing-like sections that extended from a blackened, lion's head cowl, its lower jaw had been removed, the sabertooth's ivory fangs of the upper jaw sinking down to either side of the apparition's eyes. Dual cheetah heads, missing their lower jaws, were fastened to the garment's shoulders, each beast weighing over a hundred points more than those of her own world. Each of the segments were strips of scaled leather, some sections embedded with uncut jewels. Pendants and primitive fetishes hung from the center of the chest, and from its tapered hems dangled the severed claws of saurians to swish down around the knees.

A treacherous huntress of man, a primeval female of the night, a fierce angel of death, fearful, destroying.

Herself.

Here was the deepest, darkest part of her. Here was the substance of what she was, what she had been, what she would be. Without conscience, without mercy, without pity. Untouched by compassion or regret or restraint. An impulse to feel and would kill for nothing other than satisfaction; nothing to question or challenge; no reason to stay a hand when it might shed the blood she craved. Forever and always.

Here it was, it had always been here, so deeply buried within her that even she feared to look into the depths where it lay and behold its glory.

She stared at it, stared into the reflection's eyes, feeling sick as the moments ticked by. Emotions burned in those eyes. This was not merely the urgent, greedy, vain beast that had taken control of her on other occasions, it was a monster filled black and bitter emotion, raw and uncensored, psychotic rage, desperation, infantile self-absorption, envy, lust, and an urgent monstrous hunger, beyond even what it needed to feed and survive, this creature needed to inflict pain, and took some primitive enjoyment from the act of slaughter.

And from the mirror the hand of a skeleton reached out, gripping her around the wrist and pulling. It was then that she realized, in numb-beyond-thinking terror, that this was not a mirror, no, not a mirror, but instead a doorway. The skeleton's hand had tightened, pulling her slowly toward the doorway.

She closed her eyes, sensing blood and death, such cold, timeless death, holding her, clutching her with white grinning fingers. She struggled, roused her will to resist, but its claim could not be denied.

It whispered in her ear. _"I will be cheated no more."_ The syllables were rumpled, curving into hisses.

Her mouth was still wide, and black smoke from the swirling mirror entered her throat, descending into her lungs, filling her. Falling onto her back, she writhed, as if trying to shed the chrysalis of her body. Her shoulders moved frantically. Her mouth was open in an unending scream. A small blue flame burned on her tongue. Smoke rose about her like wings.

The smoke was now solid and filling; the essence was trying to creep up her nostrils and into her mind and she was fighting it...

_But why am I fighting it?_

It was truth. It was the end of confusion, to misery and suffering. It was freedom from confusion, freedom from despair. She had reached her end, and now it was time for the other to pick up the struggle of life.

Without struggling any more, she let herself fall through the mirror.

* * *

She blinked away the last shreds of sleep, flexed her stiff fingers and winced as she did so.

When she rose, the scent of a dozen flora greeted her, and she knew them all. The root of that plant could fill her stomach, and the bark of that distant tree could quell the pain of her wounds. She knew their secrets, their uses, even merely as food, though this was not the land she had known most of her life.

Her mind understood what had to be done. She remembered a thousand things that had never happened. And she remembered a thousand things that she had never been told, and yet she knew must be done. She had no idea how it would be accomplished, but she did know it would be done and done successfully, and she would an instrument by which it would be done. For now she would forage as she went, kill quickly and efficiently when necessary, but always moving. For shelter and food she would simply live off nature. She could catch fish by hook, spear, or by hand. She could skin and butcher a freshly-killed creature, regardless of its size or type and get away with as much meat as she could carry in less time than it took for scavengers to arrive. She could identify almost any of the jungle's creature by sight or sound or, in some cases, smell. She knew how to make half a dozen varieties of deadfalls or snares. She could now find the scent of what had passed this way hours ago. Already there was the smell of fresh blood in the air, only a few hours old.

And when night fell she would sleep again, and she would dream the ancient dream. The cycle would continue until that glorious day (_the_ day) when the Warlord would come and then she would join herself with the others (the _o__thers_).

And together, they would return-_she _would return-as the great destroyer and cleanser, washing away what had been, bathing her world in blood, and in the eyes of those who she permitted to survive, she would see their fear, their respect, their adoration, and their love_,_ love that she had been seeking her entire life.

She had slept, and by waking, the dream of ages had been pulled from her mind, inherited memories, the collection unconscious, somatic and genetic recollection. She had been held in darkness for so long; but now she was free, released at last into this jungle, and now she longed for the hunts that would come.

Who was she?

Who was she?

What was she?

_"Cheetah."_ She said the name under her breath; the true name which captured everything she was, all her loves and longings and gifts and character and personality traits. Her new (old?) name was her true one, now finally discovered after what seemed a lifetime of groping for identity in this strange world.

It was so beautiful and so perfect, as if it were the name that had always been hers, but she had forgotten. The name perfectly expressed her nature, a glorious, awesome identity which was her birthright.

Priscella had never been in control, had feared the future, and feared the power of what she could do. But Cheetah neither knew that she had no control, nor cared. She no longer knew fear, and her power was greater than ever before. Now she was everything she desired to be: strong, fast, and feral, equipped with the instincts and senses of a wild beast. The wasteful pride and luxury she once possessed was now hate, rage, and pain, and most of all, hunger. She was again hungry.

Her stomach grumbled, empty, once again empty. It wasn't something she could explain. Wasn't something that she fully understood. It was like a vast emptiness inside her. Like nothingness. The hunger was all there was.

Yes, there was no Priscella any more, and now Cheetah lifted her head and screamed up at the alien skies.


	21. Sum of Man Part II of III

Paralyzed he could only watch helplessly as the pieces of armor plated themselves around him, completing the newly-formed suit. He felt as though he were a hand encased in a glove-a glove lined with dull barbs, the tips of the needles pricking his flesh; injectors waiting to pump unknown substances into his bloodstream. When it finished he would not be able to move at all; he would be sealed inside this carapace, completely and irrevocably.

"Stand up, Alexander," the chiding voice of the Benefactor said in a pleasant voice, beguiling, confident - arrogance plucked from vocal cords in a knowing throat. It was a voice that could never sound completely human. It sounded too impossibly controlled. Its every slightest nuance, inflection, and resonance conveyed a perfection that put it beyond the reach of the normal. "Allow us to see you in your new raiment."

The servitor that had been administering to his newly-armored body took several steps back to stand next to the other one. Its walk was a curious motion, like a length of film played in reverse or a wind-up toy walking backward. Now both of the artificial being stood to either side of his inert form as though they were his attendants.

He tried to move, but he was not yet able. He tried to open his mouth, move an arm, to do anything to alter his position but he remained as still as a metal sculpture. For the moment, he could only think, and his thoughts were numb.

"And now that you are properly attired, let us now speak of your enemy, for it is my enemy."

There was a low chuckle as the Benefactor sought the deepest cellars of his soul. Once again Luthor felt the presence inside his mind, moving among his neurons, and he felt its amusement as it traveled inward. Once again, he saw all the secret fears and desires he had harbored, the shames he did not want to remember, mocking him for his pettiness, his wasted potential. He looked upon the walls, the memories floating in the air, the schemes, the plans, the ploys that had brought him here. He saw all the capers and endeavours...

...and the defeats.

He squinted his eyes in concentration, slowly, cautiously, like a man trying to examine countless overlapping images formed of smoke that the slightest breeze could dissipate. His gaze sifted through the memories, seeing things he had never seen - had never noticed - before.

And found the ghostly imprints of...something.

It was everywhere.

_She_ was everywhere.

...her angular face in the fog of chemicals and flame that had taken his hair, and poisoned his heart forever against Superman.

...her broken-toothed smile on the woodwork of the Hall of Doom's interior as he called for order.

...her bony-wristed hands moving sinuously and ceaselessly in ritualistic pantomime, as though she were weaving a spell over his slumbering body as he slept peacefully in his quarters.

...her stump of a body covered in black sackcloth, standing with her back to him in the moments when he thought he was alone: whether he had been in the Hall, in the swamp, in space, or even in the laboratory when he first began this disastrous course of events.

Through all these and a thousand more, she was present.

Whenever he was beaten, whenever he embarked on a new scheme, she had been there. Sometimes she wore a different face in a crowd of bystanders, sometimes she was just a wisp of swamp-fog. She had been watching as he and the Legion first joined their hands and swore to eliminate their mutual enemies. She had been standing over him as he made his oath, smiling. She had watched as he acted. She had been there the night he had been born.

And it was her doing that had erased his memory of her presence from those events. Now they were revealed to him.

A translucent image formed in the center of his vision, flickering in and out of existence. He saw her angular features; those warts and wrinkles, and skin pale as clay; that aged mouth twisted into a cruel grin; those threadbare, black robes concealing a body bent and crippled with age.

"Now you see, Luthor," the voice said. "I am not the first. There was another in the world where you had come from: a being that is some pale doppelganger of myself, a mere shade that pretends to kingship. Can you imagine my surprise when I found these fragments in your memories? Can you imagine my _delight_!"

He stared bewildered and sick as the whole focus of his life began to shift. A wobbling sense of existential dread crept over his mind as he struggled to comprehend the sheer enormity of what he now knew. He bit his lip and tasted blood. He trembled uncontrollably. His heart beat furiously in his chest. Awareness of his current state returned to him at some point. It felt as though he had been contemplating that holographic image of that haggard face for hours, and perhaps he had been. The Benefactor was still talking to him, but he barely listened.

"With knowledge comes the responsibility of knowing. With responsibility also comes duty. Duty demands that those who have knowledge make use of it. You have played the fool in her drama and though she made you and all that you are, I sense that you are not the favored child. No, such a distinction belongs to the Justice League. You were training for them, you were a force for them to act against."

_But her...? _he thought._ How could she-_

He had said nothing, but the Benefactor responded as though he had. " _'She'_ is not a woman, despite any outward appearances to the contrary. Suffice to say it is this being to whom you should direct your attentions most keenly."

"What is _it_ then?"

"Your Coluian associate has already given it an appropriate name. It is a title that he will tell you in person when all is concluded here."

_Why?_ He could see her presence in his memories, but being mere images he could not discern her reasons, if reasons she had.

"Perhaps it is a game. A game with one player, moving the pieces across the board on both sides. You and your Legion on one side, and Superman and his Justice League on the other. But one master. One player. In any case, your defeats surely caused it amusement. Doesn't that make you angry? Doesn't it make you want revenge?"

_Yes, a game. Of course._ He had been a victim of another's manipulations all his life, and in coming here to this universe, he had inadvertently escaped its influence. But he only traded one manipulator for another. The thought indeed made him angry. Instead of the previous numbness and fear a vortex of anger began to whirl into life within him, kicking out sparks of defiance.

"Yes," the voice said. "That's it. You must set aside all other emotions. Focus on your true enemy. Hate with all your might."

"No!" Luthor yelled his outrage at the apparition, a cry of pure, sweet outrage streaked out of him like an explosion of radio waves from a star going nova. The single word went to substance in the very core of his being. It energized him with a fierce and terrible pride, the lust for power and praise and revenge that had driven him for so long, that demanded that the whole world accede to his desires and become a vast mirror for the glory of Alexander Luthor. He felt the word into and through him, cleansing his confused mind.

In that single instant, he felt hatred for the Benefactor, for the Witch, for every one and every thing that thought to make him a fool, an underling, a contemptible joke. It was hatred that was complete, and with a cosmic finality. He saw nothing but red, felt nothing but rising hatred, loathing and rage, building like a flood.

As though startled by this unexpected sortie, he felt the Benefactor retreat from its onslaught. He felt it wither and flee, spewing spite and malice, followed by a sense of baffled surprise at this unanticipated curtailment. But it did not cease. All the hatred, rage and disappointment he had ever felt in life seemed to well up inside him and demand vengeance upon this one individual being. Building and sweeping, gathering maelstrom of hate continued to expand inside him, faster and more deadly than a metastasizing growth.

Every muscle and cord in his body stiffened rigid, and the anger and outrage fused into something new, becoming a tap-line which drove down into the deepest core of his soul, the anger banishing the numbing chill of fear. Like a hungry cancer it fed upon the storehouse of his pain and humiliation-a lifetime's worth. In a frenzy of building pressure, his loathing sought an outlet...

Trembling like a poorly-controlled marionette, he closed his fingers into a fist. The energy within him blazed with wild hope, and he closed his hand tighter. A wave of blood red washed across his vision as he took a foot forward, brought his gauntleted hand forth and grasped the servitor's neck. He brought its eyeless face close to see its expression, imagining that he could see surprise on its hideous mismatch of features, as, with a simple twist of his wrist he snapped its neck. With a wet gurgle, the frail, androgynous, humanoid-thing shuddered and died.

From the the sides, the other servitor came at him, attempting to restrain him. With his new freedom and new anger Luthor swung wildly, catching it in the shoulder, and tossing it away with the merest backhanded slap. He saw it regain its footing and lope towards him like a wild dog.

And then, in that same, single instant he felt the armor respond, as though it empathically felt his predicament and reacted to it. Not questioning this new development he allowed his anger to blaze even brighter; a mighty flame of nuclear intensity. He brought his palm outward at the approaching abomination, and a circle of white in the center of it glowed. The solid emerald wall shattered before the onslaught of the crackling, white wave of energy that erupted from it, and reduced the servitor that had been standing in front of it to their component atoms in the process.

He blinked in disbelief, and turned the palm of his gauntleted hand upward. The realization that there so much power in that simple gesture that he wanted to laugh, to cackle mightily. Not only was it was powerful, it was unthinkably light for its apparent size. He barely felt its weight, which seemed to be over two hundred pounds. The inside was lined with barbs, though the irritation of their intrusiveness merely served to energize him. The pricking sensation sharpened his thoughts, and led focus to his efforts to move forward. He looked down at it. Unlike his previous assessment, the armor wasn't alien but appeared very earthly. The body had broad shoulders and over-sized arms, along with a squat thick torso. A sizable collar protected the globe-like helmet, while large gauntlets and boots shielded the extremities. To any other it would be a monstrous thing, a blasphemous amalgamation of the highest in Earthly space technology combined with the formerly-living innards of one of those quasi-organic, androgynous creatures that served the Benefactor: the parts of the original spacesuit welded with those of the servitors into something new. But he also sensed the power that the armor had. It could be a potent weapon, and, best of all, it would obey him - all qualities that made it a most beautiful thing in his eyes.

"Warsuit", he whispered its name, the one given to it by the Benefactor when it still claimed domination over him. The voice had said that with it Luthor would be "a juggernaut." He was eager to test such a grand title, though he hoped only that the armor's integrity would be serviceable for the task he needed it to accomplish.

Here he was trapped in the strange fortress of an unknown cosmic entity, with only this armor and his own mind. He had no allies, no other resources to make use of. He was alone. Over the decades of ingenuity and conflict he had built for himself so many ingenious devices, and now he required only this last one. Perhaps with only this suit, he would be a formidable force on his own back home. Perhaps he would have no more need of lackeys, robots, or half a hundred other gadgets and devices. Perhaps it had all been worth it to gain this glorious device, this wondrous war machine. With this one device he might easily find the Conveyor and return to his Earth.

But did he just desire to return to his home? Was there not the possibility for so much more in this dimension?

He then realized that there was now a gaping hole in the chamber, leading to the hallway beyond.

Before exiting he paused, and wondered about the reason behind this madness. His whole life had been wasted. The Witch had been the architect of his follies, of every one's lives and misdirections. What was the purpose? Maybe there was no purpose to any of it. Perhaps it was for amusement. The Witch's counterpart was just as twisted, and it was his little maze that he was trapped in. If it was psychological torture the entity sought, then he certainly accomplished that.

It had been in his mind, and in doing so perhaps it inadvertently left a door open. Perhaps he understood how the thing behaved without knowing exactly what it was yet. When he had gotten angry, its presence was cast out of his mind.

He cut short the dizzying spiral of pointless speculation. There was no way to prove or disprove their validity other than to forge ahead. He _would _find the unseen entity, even if he had to blast down every wall, topple every pillar, traverse every lonely corridor and illuminate every dark corner. But such an endeavor would take time and precious energy. The warsuit might be powerful beyond reason, but even it must have limits of some sort, some vital fault. He did not know how long it would last him, or when it might fail him when he would truly need it.

Contemplation of his uncertain future should have flooded him with disquiet, but where fear and anger once existed, an odd exhilaration flowed in to take their place, and a wild joy that nearly made him laugh out loud. He was simultaneously sobered by anxiety that threatened to become apprehension - and also intoxicated with the possibilities of this glorious new power that he understood only imperfectly.

His excitement doubled within seconds, and unable to contain himself, he boldly strode forward, the movement accompanied by the whirring and humming of hydraulic pistons. He curled one hand and drove his armored body forward, toward that gap in the walls. The knuckles of his gauntleted fist met the wall where the memories of his life had been projected in mockery, and he tore through the chunks of bloodied emerald as though they were made of moist paper to make the hole wide enough for him to move through into the emerald hallway beyond.

Once again he felt like a lone bacterium adrift in labyrinthine depths of a giant. He prowled through silent, green corridors, lost and apparently directionless. But unlike before he was now guided by the voice of the armor. It was a voice which he could not describe as easily as that the voice of the Benefactor. It seemed to emanate from inside...not outside, like the Benefactor's. The armor's voice enveloped him, seeped through and into him. It whispered in a voice without words which his brain could not interpret but which his soul could understand. It drew him. It implored, begged, and insisted that he act or not act.

Now it guided him, even without a map, as though it intimately knew these hallways and grand chambers. When the corridor branched, there was no delay. He knew which path to take. When the halls degenerated into a labyrinth of narrow passages and shivering walkways, he unerringly sensed which direction to turn in. The Citadel seemed to want to contain him, but Luthor was tired of delay; he moved on with a strength that was born of resignation. He would either triumph or be destroyed. At this point, either fate he welcomed; at least the manipulations would cease, at least he would know how this adventure had ended.

Abruptly the hallway he was in met with several others in a rotunda of what seemed to be continental in size, where banks of vast, monolithic structures as large as city blocks burned like blast furnaces. More than shock, a sudden awareness of previously unsensed dimensions transfixed him. He was akin to a rat in a sealed maze, for the first time looking up from the familiar passageways and seeing a world beyond the glass lid, forms and figures, mysterious movement. In some seclusion deeper than this, beyond these walls yet near at hand, was the one who created all of this?

He'd made no more than a quarter turn when he saw a small procession of beings.

They carried flags and banners and moved at a steady pace: all of them the same: a red field with a yellow crescent. They were dressed in elaborate white garments; cloaks and masks of a silky material. They walked in a line, one in front of the other. They were chanting something. He didn't need a translator to know what they were saying.

Vulgar prayers of devotion.

_Pilgrims_, thought Luthor, the word leaping, unbidden, to his mind. _Worshippers, devotees, cultists. They prayed to that thing, that horror. They offered it succor and worship._

He had only thought he had been angry before. The thought that the people of this world actually prayed to the voice, thought it worthy of reverence filled him with unreasoning fury. He heard his own breath like a whistle, very high and within him there was only one sound, only one cry.

Without thinking what he was doing, without bothering to plan, to gauge distances, to outline a course of action, he charged from the hallway into the plaza, toward the group. He reached the edge of their line before they saw him, ripped into them with his massive gaunteted hands, punching, pounding, slamming them down and kicking them hard, over and over in the neck and in the ribs.

For a long time, he moved like an automaton, a mindless construction programmed only to destroy. He tore at them, made them bleed and cry and slobber on the floor of precious green emerald. He was aware that some of them were escaping, would be bringing back help, but he did not let that deter him.

When he had finished with the half dozen he had beaten, when none of them breathed or moved or had hearts that fluttered, he looked up from the last beaten body to see the squad of beings that surrounded him.

Like the pilgrims of before, these soldiers bore a distinct resemblance to humans, though it was difficult to tell. They were helmeted, their faces were all but obscured by heavy visors, and garbed in dark green uniforms with black insignia and piping on them. Their metal fittings glowed yellow that was almost impossible to look at. His eyes stung and watered and he had to look away to avoid unbearable pain.

They advanced, resolute, and shaking their weapons, ready to destroy him. It was evident they were perfectly trained, for they stood in straight rows, rank after rank, with their weapons held erect and true, as if awaiting but the word of command. As one they honed in on his position and fired as one, sending stiletto-like rays of energy into his body.

For an instant his world was lost in the blaze of energy bursts as he was struck with a force and precision that would have destroyed him if he were not been plated in armor. He dropped to one knee and used his hand to brace himself, leaning forward as though he were facing the vicious winds of an onrushing hurricane. The barrage of energy seemed to last forever, thundering through the air with a deafening, pounding, unbearable crescendo loud enough to shatter his ear-drums had not the built-in sound filters activated.

When it finally ended, the air was filled with the actinic scent of ozone and the haze of heat, the soldiers lowered their weapons and stared at Luthor in amazement.

He was now a man of light, of energy. Smoothly the outlines of the screen of energy coalesced. As its flickering outlines grew less blurred, the vibrant energy cooled and dispersed, its protection no longer necessary.

He first considered blasting them all away with the energy projectors in his gauntlets, but, like any scientist engaged in an experiment, he wished to see what other things could be done with a new phenomena, in this case, what other weapons did this armor possess? He had only to think that line of thought and strange protrusions emerged from the armor's back-bulbous tips at the ends of tapered growths crackling with energy. From a parabolic dish mounted on the right shoulder came a high-pitched warble, a subtle sonic attack. Every one of the soldiers collapsed, grabbing their heads and covering their ears. From the left shoulder, an arcing, line of blue light lashed out from a small prism-like device and burned a neat hole squarely through the forehead of the lead soldier, just where the cross-hairs within Luthor's helmet had targeted.

He casually raised an arm, aiming at the chest of the closest guard, and four metal hooks fired into the man's torso, from which were attached steel cables. With a thought those cables were then electrified with ten thousand volts of death drawn from the source of his armor. The uniformed man gave Luthor a satisfying gurgle as he convulsed into his death, and when he was done with dying, Luthor used the cables to fling the soldier at another with the merest flick of his wrist. So great was his augmented strength that he barely felt the man's weight at all.

Luthor then took his time, enjoying the sensation of combat. He finally had a weapon that augmented his strength and prowess to the level of his brilliant mind, and he intended to enjoy it to the fullest. He picked up speed; it was so easy to move now. Wearing the armor, his every movement was accentuated with increased speed and unbelievable strength. He speculated how the warsuit was doing this. By all rights he should be clunking along at a slow plodding pace. Perhaps it manipulated gravity and kinetic force in an process unknown to the science that was familiar to Luthor. In any case he appreciated this feature immensely.

He picked up speed, tossing aside uniformed soldiers and sending them crashing into pillars, walls, and one another. As one soldier raised his weapon to uselessly fire upon him, Luthor responded with a withering blast of white hot light from his gauntlet, reducing him to blackened shreds of green cloth and scattered bones. Another soldier's skull he crushed underfoot; the man's scream cut off abruptly.

Luthor snatched the last soldier by the back of his neck with his left hand and lifted him into the air with ease. He held the soldier aloft for several seconds, listened to the solder's horrified cries a moment before brutally snapping the soldier over his armored knee. The soldier's cries stopped short in his mouth as his back shattered in a terrible snap, blood spewing against Luthor's armor from a crack that ripped open the man's chest.

"Yes. Yes," the voice spoke from the aether. "Very good, Luthor. While this was improvised, there is a lesson in this, and it is that the pawns are always disposable; that the lesser lives are to be given in sacrifice to those greater: those like you and I. For your anger are they sacrificed."

"No...This was _m_ine! I did this for myself, not for you! Where are you, my Benefactor?" he yelled thunderously. Looking around, he saw only the vast expanse of the temple-complex under a distant ceiling. He was still not outside but still inside, for the Citadel seemed a world unto itself. He could search for years and still not find he desperately sought. "Where, oh where have you fled to?"

He breathed out, venting some of the raging anger roiling within his guts.

For a moment, nothing happened. And then its familiar voice called out, "I am everywhere and nowhere."

_Everywhere and nowhere, _he repeated mentally to himself._ If you think that you are God, then I will gladly be your Nietzsche._

An idea came to him then; a simple one. Why not ask if the warsuit could locate his query?

Luthor raised his hand and power crackled in his palm as a gird-like map constructed of faintly glowing blue lines appeared. In the center was a small pulsating spot of light. Other parts of this same map showed sections of the Citadel stretching out for untold distance; countless miles up into the sky, and into the ground, expanses of space; unspeakable dimensions.

What had the being in the spiked armor with the sword said? _On the roof, that is six hundred tiers above us, is the throne._ He did not know how much constituted a tier, but if it was equivalent to a floor on a building, then that would mean...

He gripped his head as though suppressing a headache.

He still needed to travel there. But how?

As he stood and thought, another idea crossed his mind. Before the warsuit responded to his rage, and then it had responded to his unspoken desire. Now he would see if it would accede to his spoken direction.

"I want to fly."

At first nothing happened, and he almost trembled in disappointment. Surely he was not going to be trapped here?

_Please_, he silently implored the entity within the armor, the screaming electrical being that he saw enter it while he had been restrained and mentally tortured. _I know that you want this as much as I. I know you can control gravity, and I know that you can do this for me._

A whine began to build within the armor, soft at first but rapidly escalating in volume. Luthor felt himself hover several feet above the floor.

He allowed himself to glorify in this sensation for a few more seconds. He closed his eyes and allowed his head to fall back. He smiled. _At last. So this was what it meant to fly, total freedom._ Before he had used various propulsion devices - rocket boots, levitation belts. This was different. This was true flight, true power.

_Is this what it feels like to be you? _he thought, with mild acidity_. Do you feel like this all the time? Reminding the common humans how bound to earth they are? I wish that you were here. I wish that you could see me like this. But you're not. I wonder what you are doing right now. Are you rescuing lost kittens from trees? Are you arresting common burglars?_

_We've fought so many times that I've lost count. We define each other. When I'm not there, do you even really exist anymore? Do I?_

_Yes, I don't need you. I don't need your power. I don't even want it. I found my own, and it is more than enough. I'll show you next time we meet, and there will be a next time. I promise it._

An instant later he was airborne, with his arms outstretched as though awaiting his own crucifixion and subsequent apotheosis. The pose lasted only a moment - a moment charged with expectancy and purpose, before he rushed out with his right fist outstretched. That fist impacted with the ceiling that was hundreds of feet above the floor where he had been standing. Effortlessly, he flew up through the gap and soared through the next tier of chambers before doing the same to the ceiling of that level, and so on and on.

Each level of the Citadel he passed seemed less like floors in a building and more like different worlds stacked one upon the other. He felt tiny and lost amongst their splendor and richness. Columns and doorways rose on every angle, leading his eyes toward still more chambers beyond. On one level, he floated in a world of clocks: a multitude of timepieces of every description—pocket watches, grandfather clocks, travel alarms—floating through the vast blackness, ticking away the seconds in complete uniform, the staccato clicking of the gears and springs maddening. He passed through a garden made of jewels and what appeared to factories where the machines poured out gold dust and molten quartz. There was one chamber where everything was upside down, the ceiling was the floor.

The lavishness and grandeur and surreality of it all wore upon him. His mind grew wary of existing in a state of bedazzlement and unconsciously calculating the sums that would represent such magnificence. It seemed that more wealth than ever had been accumulated in all human history had been poured into the construction of this place: into the building of the walls, ceilings and floor. For furnishings, in some rooms, it looked as if the builder had commissioned every master craftsmen and artistic talent ever known to humankind and ordered them to fill his palace with the most beautiful creations they could produce. In spite of the exquisite taste and apparently infinite resources with which the Citadel had been built and appointed, in spite of its soaring spaces — or perhaps in part because of its superhuman scale — it had a quality of medieval oppressiveness; of a tyrant that refused to rest until his place of residence was the grandest conceivable.

"Your poor eyes cannot see, your feeble mind cannot comprehend," he heard the Benefactor's voice emanating from the vistas around him, the expanses of space.

"Oh, my mind can see further than you give it credit," Luthor snarled, his fury barely contained "Tell me, how many planets did you strip mine in order to get the materials to build all this, or did you just collapse an entire solar system to save time?"

"All mine," the voice said, hazily as though it were lost in thought. "To give to whom I choose."

"Now you claim to be the Devil," Luthor said. "I would believe it except that I met him. I captured him in a bottle and he was mine for a time."

"Ah!" the voice chided. "That was the one you call the Witch. And even as it lured you further into delusion with its devices of deception, you failed even to perceive who it truly was, "

"And who are you?" Luthor asked directly, not allowing himself to one again be lectured to. "God or Devil?"

"I am the Benefactor," the voice said simply. "And I have so much more to give to you."

"And I am Lex Luthor!" he shouted. "Hear me! Listen to me now, you freak of cosmic insanity! You do not give to me. I _take!"_

The voice went silent as though chastened, and at this Luthor felt a rare feeling of satisfaction.

The rest of his journey was a kaleidoscope of images; of monolithic machinery, of crackling electricity, slim pillars of azure and ruby, avenues leading off into imperceptible distance. Chambers upon chambers; rooms upon rooms.

The magnitude of this labor was not so much epic as insane, and the sheer excess of it was quickly sickening to Luthor. He longed to once again see the plainness of spartan furnishings or even a simple white surface.

He longed for an end.

At last, he sensed he was drawing close to the very heart of the Citadel, the place where the Benefactor was, if the glowing point on his map-globe was any indication. He was proud of himself that he did not stop, did not allow himself to deterred from his objective. Finally he smashed through the floor of the last level, the final level in this monument to utter insanity, and looked around.

He was now in place of shadows despite the fact that the very bricks shone with a pale white light. The chamber's walls and pillars crawled with shifting colors, tints and hues merging with each other, and new forms springing from their joining. He felt the walls, sniffing like a dog for its prey, and walked on, refusing to be held entranced by the spectacle. Overhead rose onion-shaped pillars of brass that were so monumentally huge that the ceiling was barely visible between their eaves. The pillars formed a labyrinth leading to separate rooms. The air was filled with a tinkling music in low and charming unison, like wind chimes.

He sensed his quarry lurked somewhere near. He could almost taste it, almost feel his power vibrating through the passages.

"I'm close to the center," he said. _But the center of what? Center of whom?_

_Everything._

He took a step forward, but stopped himself immediately. If he had stepped forward once more, he would have fallen into a deep chasm. He noticed now the deep fissures that ran across the floor and there appeared to be many ledge-like areas protruding from the walls set with braziers, fountains and chandeliers that flowed with cascades of white water filling the bottom of the trenches.

Fortunately, with the propulsion of his armor, he easily surmounted these trenches and passed into a circular room, at the very center of which stood a circular fountain of white marble streaked by gold and lavender veins.

From there he moved through this antechamber's exit to the left, through a hallway of glass-smooth walls and a polished silver floor, and through an archway, there was another circular room containing another fountain, this time of what looked to be wine. The fountain sprayed the liquor high overhead from an ornate silver bowl on top, decorated with clusters of gold grapes and then fell back to cascade down through a succession of ever larger scalloped bowls.

" '_Show me the god',"_ he whispered, recalling a line of prose he had read once, the author eluding him. " _'If the wine be sweet I will drink it with him, and if it be bitter I will drink it with him also.'_ "

Again moving to the left he entered an alabaster hall and into an abettor of horror. The ceilings were gold leaf and seethed with the capillary pattern of veins in the walls, pulsing with blood. The fountain's dais was made up of concentric circles of skulls. Its apex was decorated with horned skulls with trickles of blood flowing from their mouths and sockets into the basin like water. The apex of the fountain was a still-beating human heart with cascades of blood flowing down its sides.

With the side of his mouth turned in mild distaste, he passed through more chambers and more fountains: acid, fire, molten silver, a fountain that whirled with gemstones and one that was completely frozen over with ice. He finally arrived at a chamber where the fountain was merely a cone described by many stone bowls of decreasing diameters; the bowls were collars on a cylindrical shaft. This last fountain was empty and seemed somehow desolate. He ran his finger across its surface, noticing that there was a hairline fracture running from its apex to its base, nearly imperceptible. He wondered what this latest fountain represented, if anything at all, before once again taking the left hand path from the chamber.

At last, after traveling through innumerable chambers containing innumerable fountains the last corridor widened so abruptly that the walls simply appeared to have vanished, and the ceiling retreated to a point at the edge of his sight. This chamber was as large as a dozen huge marble ballrooms put together; an extravagant waste of space that impressed him more than it should have, after all that he had witnessed up to this point. The walls all around were grotesquely detailed now, every inch of their surfaces appeared to have been grooved and carved and etched over with blood-red and purple symbols, markings and scroll-work. There was no beauty to them; the intricate elaborations overlapped, rendering their surfaces hopelessly mingled, and succeeded in blocking out the light of the luminescent bricks that comprised the walls and floor. As if to compensate, an oculus had been cut into the ceiling from which a shaft of sunlight beamed down.

In the heart of this immense chamber rose an architectural monstrosity, a riot of angles and protuberances, twice the size of any cathedral Luthor had ever seen. Its structure suggested a kind of upended labyrinth that supported countless towers and balconies in a half dozen different architectural styles, but all of its lines and angles all appeared to be subtly wrong; seeming to lean in three or four different directions all at once. Parts of the structure sagged in some places and bulged oddly in others. There were features he recognized: roofs, gables, arches and masonry carved in geometric shapes, flying buttresses and minarets. It looked like the work of a dozen insane architects who had all decided to build a different structure in the same location and connect them with domes, parapets, and sheltered walkways. From the outside there was no telling how many floors or rooms because one level seemed to stop in midair and another shot up in another place.

Here, he was convinced, was the Citadel's beating heart and nerve center, he was sure of it. The place where all power and authority flowed.

As he walked for hundreds of feet across the expanse of floor, he looked down at it. The floor was a solid sheet of polished crystal or glass, clear as still water. The sheet protected the strange, patchwork stone fragments beneath, fitted together like puzzle pieces.

"My collection, Luthor," the voice boomed down, echoing from the marble. "Look carefully upon it for it has taken many millennia to assemble. Each piece is from some civilization that I have conquered, subjugated or destroyed. Each piece has been removed, carefully, one by one, from all of the great monuments and art of that world and brought here so that I might be reminded of those glorious days of youth. Under your feet are granite fragments from the glorious War-Circle, limestone from the pillars of the temple of Khamshem, quartzite from the capstones of the pyramids of Khemet and Tenocentitla, tiles from the palaces of Raji, metal struts of the tower of Rosunia."

Luthor grunted, refusing to be led to comment upon yet another monument to this being's ego, but allowed him to speak. He walked across the glass surface of the floor without pausing, or looking down. They were all just pieces of rock and metal. What did he care what they might once have been part of?

"Now do you see how pathetic this attempt upon my life is? You should feel like a gnat attempting to destroy a continent. These great civilizations with all their ingenuity, with all their collective potential and resources fell before my conquering majesty, so what hope do you have?"

"If all I had was hope," Luthor said, walking forward. "Then I would truly be lost." He placed a hand over his chest-plate, right over where his heart was. _You were so eager to give me this, and for that at least I am appreciative._

The structure had three gates barring entry into its interior. He selected the leftmost gate, briefly finding the symbolism appropriate. What did it matter? All roads lead to Rome, all paths of power lead to the center.

The moment his gauntleted hand touched the left gate, a column of flame sprang up around him, a furious, storming energy. A sheet of lightning raked across this armored form. A cry of surprise escaped Luthor's lips before he realized that the lightning was as dangerous to him now as a spring rain. His cry became a laughter of delight, and with a quick jerk, he ripped the gate from its housing. The gate crashed to the floor along with sections of the structure's wall.

Curiously, what lay beyond was washed out in a glow of light, but not exactly light; it was as if screens or veils fluttered in front of him - thin, transparent layers as diaphanous as gauze, as ephemeral as morning fog. He passed through the layers into the chamber beyond.

The room was a symphony of flowing organic design filled with coiling pipes and cables snaking across the walls and floor. Immense display screens arched high above and around him and on their screens were rivers of projected data. Below, stretching wide beneath each screen, jutted smooth featureless consoles of white. Between each screen and console rose ponderous wall supports of gleaming silver, anchored by deeply rooted bases into the floor. Supporting a vast domed ceiling, they stretched like huge, overhanging tree trunks and converged high above forming a wide dome. Recessed lights three pools of radiance upon the floor. The few expanses of wall that otherwise were barren harbored deep, shadowy alcoves where, it occurred to Luthor, unpleasant surprises might easily lie in wait.

He looked towards one of the screens as it swarmed with a moving undulant mosaic of notations. The scintillant display had a strange beauty that immediately captured his attention. He thought he saw what resembled musical notation: groups of chords, bars of music somewhere within those swirling shapes.

"Translate," he said, addressing the armor, hoping that it knew the language of this world. Apparently it did, as before his eyes words formed upon the interior of his helmet: _"Electroencephalographic"_ was one word _"Cardigraphic"_ and then _"Galvanic Response"_ and then _"Respiration", "Temperature", "Pulse"_, _"Internal Temperature Modulation Factor," _and_ "Refractive Chemical Enzymatic Reaction Coefficients."_

_Of course,_ he thought. _Life support._

Something was nestled in the center of the room. Directly below a second oculus that had been cut into the ceiling of the room was a large, bronze, pyramid-shaped mound, rising about twenty feet off the floor, and led to by a series of green metal ramps. Its apex was squared and had been wholly enclosed in a hemisphere of what appeared to be pure diamond that glowed a fiery, iridescent blue. The sunlight's beam illuminated the dome. Peripheral to its base was a circle of silver metal, and attached to the panels encircling it by copper arteries. Into the hemisphere ran scores of thick conduits. The whole arrangement reminded Luthor of some technological cocoon.

The dome glowed, not from the rays, but by a fire lit from within. He saw that energy pulsated through its arteries, reminding Luthor of a heart.

"Stop!" the voice was loud, insistent, resounding in the depth of the chamber. "You may not approach the shrine of the presence."

_Such vanity,_ he thought. Vanity...and something else. A tremble in the voice. Could it have been fear? Could it be that the Benefactor was afraid of Luthor, afraid of the armor that had been given to him? Considering the kind of power that the entity obviously wielded, the idea seemed absurd. If it meant to stop him, why hadn't the Benefactor killed him with a bout of energy? One possibility was that at one point in time such a being might have wielded its might freely, but over the ages of its rule, it had become a derelict hulk, and its will to act had atrophied. It could not make him do anything he did not wish to. But it could speak to him, could communicate with him. It could project its image and voice into places like the Bleed and this Citadel. It could even attempt to drive him mad or lead him to self-destruction, but it could not directly kill him.

Not without a minion to act as its hands.

His speculation was interrupted when he sensed the presence of another in the chamber with him. He heard the hum of hydraulics, the hiss as if an air lock were opening, and a section of floor rose up into view. On the section of floor rose a figure clothed a blue leotard and robed in a red cape.

For a moment his stomach muscles locked tight as he experienced the slightest tinge of fear. When he saw the flapping red cape trailing behind it, he feared that the Benefactor had reached across the universes and plucked _him_ to face Luthor.

The figure walked forward and stepped into the light.

It was Superman.

It was a servitor.

It was a horrifying symbiosis of both. Superman's head was clamped firmly on the robotic creature's shoulders. The mouth was slightly open, and the teeth and lips were darkened from the leaking of fluids, while the heavy-lidded eyes were turned upward, no pupils showing. The neck was stretched and ripped, forming a ragged edge where it met the glassy skin of the servitor. One arm still retained artificial flesh, while the other was a metal skeleton.

This was the servitor from whom the parts of his armor had come from. It had been repaired using parts scraped from the Superman robot found within the Hall.

The robotic thing took another stride, but stopped halfway as though uncertain of its ability to stay upright if it completed the move. He noticed now the lower body and legs were thick, monstrous stumps made of metal.

"No..."

"Yes Luthor," the voice said. "By your spirit of rebellion you have proven your unworthiness of my generosity. Unfortunately my disciples are currently occupied with your Legion, and so it falls to this one to recover the parts that were incorporated into your armor. Do not resist this."

_Do not resist?_ Surely the Benefactor jested. He had his body imprisoned, his clothing burned, his mind violated, his life threatened. He had been slandered, abused, and now this final insult. His own handiwork had come back to mock him in the semblance of the man he hated most in existence, had risen shambling to battle with him.

"Also," the voice said. "That ungracious singularity within the warsuit will also be punished. I had thought that I had it significantly disciplined, but it appears that other measures were needed."

"So it is sentient?" Luthor chuckled. "Then this is something we both want." In an instant Luthor raised his arm and used the wrist launchers to open fire on the robot. The projectiles hammered home, blasting away at its chest, shredding a portions of its shield. The Superman-thing's body swayed back and forth from the series of impacts, but its dead face remained impassive. Aside from having sustained some torso damage, looked none the worse for wear from the barrage.

From its lifeless, glassy eyes shot forth twin yellow beams, far divorced from their characteristic red. He would know; he had been the target of the Superman's heat vision many times - too many to count. He felt the force of those rays and he was driven back a step. He looked down where they had struck and was amazed that the plating was not melted nor did it steam. The spot wasn't even scorched or blackened; it still shone untarnished black. He imagined that his chest-plate wasn't even warm.

Under his faceplate he smiled; it was a dangerous smile, a smile of hate, vengeance and stoked-up fury.

_I am the one who can fly, _he thought with wild exhilaration._ I am the one who is invulnerable and who is strong._

The thing plodded forward with none of the poise possessed by the one it sought to imitate, its movements uncertain as though it were a simpleton that was crippled mentally rather than physically. Still it was very fast, and very strong, and it was singular in its purpose: to rise up and protect its master. It charged and its metal fist struck the armor directly, propelling Luthor backward with such an impact that the console behind him collapsed. Debris of metal flew and sparks ignited in the air. The servitor followed with a second punch to the helmet and Luthor recoiled as though he had been actually struck in the head, a clanging sound resounding in the depths. The third blow impacted the armor's midsection and propelled him back into a pile of the infernal machinery. He was driven to one knee, and turned his head to see the thing in flight, propelling itself towards his prostate form with both fists extended. The servitor brought one fist down on the neck of the armor, the force of the stupendous blow drove Luthor to his knees, and he pressed a hand against the floor to steady himself from collapsing completely.

Throughout it all, its face remained impassive, the artificial blood staining its mouth. The eyes were hollow holes in the mask that was its features.

While not nearly as strong as the genuine article the android had been designed by Luthor to superficially imitate the feats of the Man of Steel. It was as fast and as strong as his earthly science could have made it. The robot-double, having bonding with the servitor, could only have amplified its strength with alien technology, and yet despite its best efforts, it could do nothing to damage his new armor. The air rang with the repeated impact of metal on metal, and though shaken from inside, the suit still remained unscathed from the blows.

Still its vise-like grip caught him off-guard, yanked him to his feet, and together they smashed through one of the consoles, releasing a cascade of sparks and smoke as they did so. It ducked low and attempt to plough into Luthor. The scientist responded with a blow of his own right at the shoulder.

The warsuit may have made him impenetrable, but if this kept up, one of the blows would reverberate enough to possibly drive him to unconsciousness, and then it would be truly be over for him. At that thought, the Superman-thing struck the same spot again and again, and then he heard a significant crack. It had concentrated all its power there, and in doing so, broke part of his shoulder-guard.

_No more._ He raised a hand and fired a blast from his gauntlet, pouring a raging torrent of white energy into the still form of the artificial being, blasting it back into a container that Luthor hoped was oxygen.

The result was a fireball of stupendous height. It enveloped the being completely, the first burst of heat enough to sear the leotard on its body and set its hair and flesh alight. Protected from the blast, it roared over Luthor and ignited other fires around the room.

When the Superman-thing finally emerged from the smoke and flame, Luthor once again felt apprehension that it still stood, still coming at him; invulnerable. He had clearly damaged it: artificial skin hung from the steel bone, smoldering. The blue of its leotard was blackened. The hair on its scalp was on fire in places and gone in others. It had a single eye whirling its socket, and the other burned with a yellow light. On its torso were large gashes, revealing the play of organic and cybernetic parts beneath. The cape had been set aflame and it wore a cloak of fire, blazing with plumes of flame.

It shifted forward, the movement smooth and completely unlike its previous clumsy motions. One of its arms shifted, becoming a rotating blade-saw in the process.

Luthor grunted, and wished for a blade of his own. Instantly the warsuit responded: a knife-blade slid from the wrist of his gauntlet; adamant and shining. He smiled, and thought _thank you._

Before the servitor could plunge the saw-blade at him, Luthor drove his own knife into its eye. There was a crack as the eye gave way and was dislodged. The tip of his blade broke off, and Luthor was hurled back by a blow from the thing's fist. He came back quickly, grabbed the extended fist and hoisted high, overturning the being as a result. A square blow between the shoulders rocked the servitor off its center of gravity, at the same time shifting his footing so that his sidewise stance would enable him to swing the servitor around. The Superman-thing did not resist. It allowed Luthor to whirl him around and sweep the knees out from under it.

Now down, he beat and tore at the machine-creature until it crumbled under his armored fists like an empty can. Wires and circuits popped and shorted, leaked tar-like ichor, and smoke exuded from joints and splits in the torso. Still it convulsed and writhed, still it attempted to fight him. Its one eye raked a yellow beam across the ceiling in a futile attempt to strike him. Its saw-blade arm shrieked as it cut into the metal of the floor and became stuck. His fist struck its face and flesh and bone and metal caved inward under the impact like so much melon pulp.

Finally with one smooth motion of his arm, he clamped the palm of his gauntlet over the servitor's mouth, and with a cry of pure fury, he willed the gauntlet to fire. The resulting blast exited through the back of the servitor's head, decapitating it in the process.

Now headless, its arms flailed about a moment, and then dropped lifelessly to its sides as the body stilled on the floor.

Luthor stood victoriously over the rubble, breathing hard, it was a hollow victory-this wasn't Superman, his lifelong enemy. There was the same rush at the overcoming of an obstacle, but no cathartic release that would come from the Man of Steel's demise.

Luthor momentarily felt the urge to rip it open like a maddened surgeon, to learn all the secrets that led to the creation of this abomination, to learn how thoroughly the merging process had been. Instead he turned back to the steps. His destiny awaited him there, at the top of the steps.

_Not here, but there._

The great chamber was in ruins. Piping and cables were severed. Some sprayed with pressurized water, or thrashed and sizzled from live electricity. Others dripped multicolored liquid across the tiled floor or emitted dazzling sparks. The computing devices crackled like furnaces, consumed by flames. Eerie electronic beeps, crackles, and oscillations, not ear-torturingly loud but uncannily piercing, filled the room as the life-support equipment went offline.

He turned back, and the Superman-automation still lay at his feet. Luthor grunted, still not sure that the thing was dead, but the evidence was right there in front of him. He felt that everything that had come to pass had led him to this point, every past endeavor merely milestones in the journey towards this place and this moment.

He began to ascend the ramp and the hemisphere that lay there.

On his first step, the world fell away. He was falling, forever, not knowing which way was down, he felt each direction pulling incessantly. He felt infinity dragging at him. The scream that broke free of his mouth left him on soft wings, fluttering away to leave him alone.

And then he blinked and he was again standing upon the ramp in the ruined chamber.

He took a second step, and he stood behind the redwood podium, having called the meeting to order. He stared at the concerned faces of the Legionnaires he despised so much and was about to issue a command for silence by bringing the gavel down when he remembered where he was.

"Spare me your illusions!" he screamed with fury, and the vision around him faded, returning him once more to the medical chamber. "Fear and illusions are the only weapons you have left, and they will no longer work on me. I'm done with them. Stop it."

"Stop _this,_ Luthor," the voice said. The tone was actually pleading now. He had never heard it like this. It actually seemed...vulnerable. "Stop now, and we shall reconcile...I will forgive you."

"I will not," said Luthor, he babbled the words so great was his anger. "I will not. . . . I will. . . . I will not. . . not reconcile, and I never forgive."

He strode up to the blue half-globe where he could just barely see it: a vague shape, amorphous, reclining, connected to a wealth of humming, pinging, gurgling mechanical equipment. There was no doubt as to the shade's identity.

"Please. Allow me to..."

"I do not forgive!"

Clenching his armored fist, he struck the dome once, twice, three times, each impact bringing a resounding gong every time he struck. On the fourth blow, a fine crack appeared on the globe's surface.

With his fifth blow, the entire globe shattered into pieces, revealing the contents to his sight.


	22. Sum of Man Part III of III

There was no darkness to conceal its appearance anymore. No more illusions or mists or misdirections. No servants. No masks.

Poised in the shaft of pure white light streaming down from the ceiling overhead, the Benefactor was fully illuminated in the hot white glare; its form aglow and gleaming in the focused sunlight.

Luthor stepped forward, his booted feet crushing the fragments of blue crystal that were all that was left of the dome that had once concealed the being.

"My god, but you are small," he said with an acidic tone of long-felt disdain.

It was not a truly accurate statement. From what little that he could see of its features, there was much of the human and more still of the inhuman: vaguely human in flesh and form and yet it was monstrous in size, nine feet tall or more. It was its other physical qualities that gave it an impression of smallness, of frailty.

Luthor moved toward the creature, noting its hunched back and wizened frame dressed in silken rags that had once been glorious robes of monarchy: royal purple, shimmering with deep highlights, bright with woven colors of black and scarlet, spots and traceries of gold and palest white. It rested upon a slab of sparkling alabaster and black, silken cushion, their luxurious beauty utterly defiled by the hideousness that lounged upon them. It appeared emaciated, each rib of its ribcage gleaming behind translucent flesh. There was no skin or flesh on its stomach; its bones, muscle, gristle and tendons were exposed to the open and were gleaming wetly. He saw tubes and wires holding its organs in place, tying blood vessels together. The tubes he saw leading inward looked to be replacements for parts that might have decayed or otherwise became dysfunctional. Its arms were disproportionately long and sinewy, almost bird-like, possessed of a supernatural flexibility and supple grace. The hands were large with long delicate fingers; disfigured as though by starvation or prolonged illness. Those fingers sported a dozen, bejeweled rings on each of its hands. Its spinal column appeared warped, the legs lacerated and malformed. Its feet were not even of human origin, instead appearing almost cloven in appearance. All over, its flesh was withered and deathly pale - the color of alabaster and water-drowned bodies. In patches were boils, cysts, and carbuncles covering sections of its shriveled skin, as if the corruption inside it sought to be free.

Its face and head were the worst. In its features could still be seen the symmetry of perfection, but Luthor only saw a creature that had tortured him, had sought to best him, who had power and privilege that he coveted. Once it might have been a face to rival Adonis, now it was hideously marred by the accumulation of infirmary. Those once angular features were still intact: the high cheekbones, philosopher's brow, the firm jawline, all bespeaking of a past perfection and symmetry beyond the normal human range. The nose was a collapsed ruin, as though it had been eaten away from a syphilitic disease. At one point its two eyes had either been damaged by injury, disease or age, and they had been removed and replaced by a cluster of sensors: tiny beads of ruby glass, small knots of wire, waffle-surfaced chips of some ceramic material, all bristling and slightly recessed in the deep black holes of the being's head. Wires and relays had fused with the optic nerves directly and led away into the consoles around the hemisphere. Likewise a speaking tube was bracketed to the sides of its mouth, and led away into the chamber. Its pallid lips wrapped around the tube, the mouthpiece held by toothless yellowish-brown gums, providing the mean by which the creature could speak. Perhaps other mechanisms allowed it to project its presence to those areas where its voice intruded. It evidently had a head of hair once, now it grew in patches of white, devoid of health or color.

At his approach, the malformed being shuddered, shook uncontrollably, as though wracked with spasms of some unending excruciating muscle pain. It twisted, but didn't even turn to acknowledge his presence. It remained hunched over, as though it were cowering and afraid. It was cringing in terror, marshaling its waning strength against his approach. Underneath this weakness, he felt currents of its power eddying, swirling resonances of electromagnetic anger and fury. It certainly looked as though it longed to strike out at him but could not.

Power was useless without a mechanism to harness and control it, and the Benefactor's mechanism had long ago deteriorated beyond the point of effectiveness; the being was an chariot without a horse; a mobile without an engine.

Just as he hypothesized, decrepit and demented.

It probably had been this state for uncounted ages, slowly withering, ceaselessly dying by degrees. At one time it might have a conquering titan, vital and leading its followers in armies of conquest from one side of infinity to another. It might even have been the creator of this universe, the one whose hands had shaped the ether into water and dry lands, had drawn the hydrogen clouds and ignited them into suns. But over time perhaps it had grown complacent and withered into infirmary or been wounded in battle by an assassination attempt from some traitorous lieutenant.

Either would have resulted in its current state. Luthor did not care how the being had been reduced to this. He was more interested in how its current state could be properly exploited.

He stared up at the occulus in the ceiling, and saw how it had been directed to strike down upon the being in continuous stream of light.Perhaps, like Superman, this being derived some additional benefit from sunlight? He traced a finger across one of the conduits, and the strangely-hued liquids that quickly and efficiently surged through them. _It is feeding on whatever nourishment was running through these, and the wastes were drawn away. Without these, it would likely perish._

He weighed the matter in his mind. Should he pull the cords free and watch as the beast choked? Would he be satisfied with that? Would he be content simply with its death, or was not there the possibility of something more, something greater?

He stood contemplating this new development, and how it be incorporated into a plan that been formulating in his brain ever since his escape from the chambers of projected memories. From the battle, he deduced that the primary function of the armor was to absorb and discharge energy. And in the past, Luthor had constructed many devices for the purpose of making use of various forms of energy-all kinds of energy..

..._even the unique bio-energy of superhuman entities. _

Most of the time he created machines to direct and project such energy, but he had also designed ones that siphoned it and could transfer that energy into the body of another; instilling that second being with whatever abilities the first being possessed.

If he could just.

_Yes!_

It was all so clear now. He knew what had to be done next. He had decided everything with the speed and the thoroughness of a super-computer. Like every extraordinary mind, he could perfectly recall those plans, those blueprints and concepts of the device he required. Mentally, he visualized the necessary components for such a device and sent the commands from his thoughts to his suit. He had seen how the servitors functioned; how they were able to change and reconfigure themselves to produce whatever tools were needed for the task at hand. If the armor, whose parts it had come from, was as highly adaptable as he hoped, it would accede and change itself to conform to his thoughts. When it was finished, it would serve a much greater purpose, perhaps the greatest purpose imaginable.

Originally he had intended to to use it to steal the abilities of Superman, but here was a far, far greater prize. Though he did not want any of its possible psychological or physiological frailties, he could make a great deal of use of its power; the power that had bent reality to its fiddle, had built this Citadel and bridged universes. It was there to be tapped by someone brave enough, ingenious enough.

What seemed like an eternity passed, filled only with the unmistakable sound of construction, as dozens of mechanisms altered the interior of the armor's chest-plate. All the while he could hear the delicious pleas of the cowering creature before him.

"_Please!" _The voice was desperate and hesitant, not coming from the figure itself, but transmitted through the speaking tube to the furthest-most of the large chamber. _"Please, Alexander...I am begging...I beg you..."_

"Yes!" he screamed joyously, spreading his arms wide as though preparing to embrace the cowering creature. "Beg!" With a triumphant hiss of hydraulics, the chest-plate of his armor opened up. Tendrils of steel suddenly erupted, wrapping around the Benefactor, bonding to its flesh, into its brain, reaching into the core of the being, seeking the energy that seethed there.

The chamber shuddered as though with an earthquake as the Benefactor let out a high-pitched keening like the wail of a thousand lost souls and the shrieking of ten million imperfectly-tuned instruments of music.

A bright, multi-hued light began playing around the shriveled form, growing brighter with each moment, incalculable cosmic energies had at last been unleashed.

As it reached its peak - when the light became too unbearable to gaze at - it suddenly flowed from the Benefactor's body, into the the tendrils extending from Luthor's chest-plate. The pulses continued onward, streaking through the connections leading into the armor. Charts and graphs flowed across his vision, recording the flux of energy flowing into his armor, into his body. Without pause, it flashed inward, into the armor and into Lex Luthor.

In that instant he felt what was at once in intolerable ecstasy and unbearable agony—and transcending both. His body convulsed into rigidness as the energy of the cosmos thundered through his being. A silent scream died upon his lips.

The light grew brighter around him, even as it dimmed around the Benefactor. The energies continued to pulse from the Benefactor's wasted and decrepit form. What must have been its sweat crawled away into the floor, the beads starting to boil and evaporate. Its body convulsed as its innards were sucked out, its hide desiccating, decomposing with remarkable haste. Flesh boiled, rose, blackened, rapidly developed gaping cracks and festering caves.

Streams of silver electricity rolled downward along the outer plates of his armor. A crack of thunder rumbled across the ceiling above him. Crescent-shaped beams of light blasted forth from his joints. Light of many hues glinted off of its surface.

Instantly he saw his vision expand to 180 degrees, hearing, smell, all the senses flared into new intensity such as he had never known before. He could feel and sense the energies all around him, feel the enormous power surges that were suddenly so real they took on an almost physical form, as if he could just reach out and take hold of them and bend them any way he wanted. It was a tremendous, exhilarating, heady feeling, a rush of strength and power beyond belief. Similarly, he felt his senses expanding to encompass everything in the room. He could read the information from the machines directly, translate their ions into a language that he could understand. He could count each dust mote in the air at a glance, and hear their normally silent collisions.

When the transfer finally ended, the tendrils of metal retracted into the chest-plate, which closed with a silent hiss. He looked about himself, and saw that he floated, without consciously willing it, above the floor. Wisps of energy flickered from his eyes like the coronal streamers of a mighty sun.

This was the moment for which he had lived-and fought-so long to see happen. His entire body hummed with infinite vitality; an intoxicating sensation, sensuous..._divine. _

Before he thought the power of the armor was impressive, but this...

The Benefactor's energy was like an old wine, aged to perfection. Useless in the possession of its former owner, but renewed and pulsating in Luthor's.

The warsuit itself shifted and changed. He had merely to think of it and the change occurred. The enormity of power flowing into him allowing for him to change its gunmetal black visage into something more appropriate to his new status. The armor's surface bubbled as though it were re-forging, and its color shifted from dull black to emerald green and royal purple. Smiling he added needless elaborations to its surface: stylized Ls and Ds as well as the ancient symbols for alchemy and mathematics, physics and thermodynamics: all the great sciences that led him to this glorious moment, all the concepts and knowledge that he had cherished. None of it was necessary, but it pleased him to do it.

The raw energy unleashed during the transfer had devastated the surrounding room, collapsing the shrine upon itself. The vast dome exploded upward and outward.

Rising though the extended occulus, the bier upon which Luthor stood was now exposed to the larger chamber.

He turned his attention to the now defunct master of a universe, finding only the rags that had been its robes, the tarnished metal of its signet rings, and garish jewelry lying in a small heap. Whatever force had animated its wasted frame had fled its body, leaving nothing behind, save a scattering of crystalline, bone fragments and glittering golden dust that had once filled its veins and arteries.

"_Witness. Look upon the strength of a man. Yes, I am a human being, just that. I was not only smarter than you are, I was the stronger. And today you have paid dearly for attempting to imprison your better. Paid painfully. Paid with your life._

He wished that the Benefactor was still existent in some form, so that he might hear his unspoken taunt. For a split-second he considered rushing forward and exultantly scooping up of its remains - its jewelry and tokens of office - to let them dribble through his fingers. No, that was what the Luthor of old would have done. He would no longer need to lower himself to such base avarice.

Now he was the lightning. He was the frenzy...the power, the glory...

...the Super-

"No..." he said aloud, a whisper. "I am more than he ever was."

_No longer a man. Now a god._

The concept frightened and exhilarated him.

He stared around, finding himself standing atop the bier that had once held the wasted form of the Benefactor. The metal ramps were will intact, but now the insane, multi-leveled structure had collapsed. Heaps of rubble and chunks of stone lay scattered and broken about the floor like the grave makers for a race of titans.

Beyond the rubble, he stared with a keeness of eye that an hawk would envy. Figures appeared in the distance, familiar figures: Brainiac, Bizarro Nimble, Snart, and all the others. Obviously the tremors that rocked the Citadel during the transfer of energy had freed these prisoners. Or perhaps with his new abilities he had subconsciously brought them here as witnesses. It didn't matter. They were here now and that was all that was important.

An almost unknown feeling seized him: it was contentment. It was only fitting that they should be here, only right that they should bear witness to his ascension. He turned around to face them, finding that some of the Legion were on their knees stock-still and eyes riveted upon his now-luminous form. A few of them shielded their eyes from his glory, the way a child would look upon a first gaze upon the sun.

He felt as if he knew them all intimately, for their minds were laid bare before his new omniscient senses, splinters of thoughts and emotions that came to him in mutters and flashes. He could sense their hungry desires, their envious thoughts, and realized how petty and small they truly were. It seemed incredible that he had shared their minuscule, limited experiences. Now he could feel their fear and their awe as he looked up at him. Perhaps only Brainiac had the capacity to understand; the android would make a fitting seneschal in the coming kingdom.

He had won.

Despite every obstacle the Benefactor had thrown in his path, despite every illusion, every torment he had worked, Luthor had triumphed! It was well and truly defeated, his power stolen and now in Luthor's capable hands. The creature's domain was his to do with as he pleased. He had fought and clawed and struggled against insurmountable odds to obtain this. This was all like Christmas. All the things he had ever wanted and never truly expected to have.

But to what purpose? He had the ability, and there were countless channels into which he could direct it. And as such, he must have a goal. Was killing a single hated enemy, no matter how mighty, enough for one of his potential? His magnitude? No, there had to be more. He knew that the League were now no more than gnats to be smashed together with the clap of his gauntleted hands; barely worthy of even his malice. Yes, there had to be something more.

He recalled another quote, something that he had read long ago and now thought appropriate. "_What happens to a man to whom all things seem possible and every course of action open? Nothing of course. Except war. If a man lives in the sphere of the possible and waits for something to happen, what he is waiting for is war - or the end of the world."_

_Yes, _he thought._ War. There must be war._

Plans unfolded in the profound depths of his expanded consciousness. Before his secrets had been drawn from him, now he was replenished with strong thoughts, detailed and baroque architectured in their design and grandiose in scope. His thought processes racing faster and faster as the godly power within him became further integrated with his own being. He knew for a fact that there were people of a sort here, he had seen them and even battled some of them. From these they would forge an army of conquest, whipping them into formation with monstrous threats and sweet promises of reward. He would arm them with fantastic weapons drawn from his ingenious imagination and given existence through the judicious use of his new omnipotent might. Once his power was known, men would fight beneath his banner willingly.

He would lead this new Legion of his back. He would not need their help to do so, but he would indulge them, allowing them the blessing of following him as his entourage. He would conquer and he would rule. Just as he had sundered the veil to the throne, so too would he sunder the fabric of the dimensions. He would put the false Superman and the witch-entity that had nurtured him for so long in the proper place: on their knees before the newly erected throne he would build in the charred cinders of Metropolis. Too long had that place been tainted, too long had its name become synonymous with his profane existence. Luthor would raze it to the ground, brick by brick, and then build it again all in shining lines and perfect symmetry. It would truly be a city of tomorrow then, and a stately capital for his empire. Then he would lead the peoples of the Earth, ones who had for so long scorned and mocked and imprisoned him. He would accept the burden of being lord to those masses, even though they were not worthy of his rule, having proven themselves unworthy through their continued rejection of him. He had always been reviled, but this new power would make him feared; never again to be driven like a hunted wolf. Images of gratification in every form jumbled for space in his brain. He saw himself as a king with the remnants of a shattered humankind subservient to him. He saw himself topple cities and rebuild them at his command. He saw himself order the building of vast fleets of star vessels launching onto the vast sea of space to conquer the stars in the name of Luthor. He saw himself dressed in his armor of emerald and royal purple, a giant holding the two universes en-globed. Power and glory forever and ever.

He looked upon the Legion, all standing stupidly before him, and he smiled at their bafflement and their unspoken thoughts. They wondered what he would do next, and if his next act would involve them. They were now spellbound, a few like Sinestro made half-hearted attempts at preparing defense at this new threat. He smiled as benevolently as he could. There was no longer any need for apprehension. They could not harm him now, nothing could. The collective might of the Legion was an ember compared to the sun that he now was.

As they were his audience he must give them something to see, he decided.

With one imperious gesture, Luthor caused the domed ceiling to collapse. Alien stars glittered high above in a crimson filament. They were moving now, circling the Citadel like fireflies, forming and re-forming constellations and the spirals of unknown galaxies. He could their music now. In response he made his own song. He had only to will it and it was. This reality was slave to his merest whim. He perceived the motion of sound and it changed to suit his desires: a wondrous song, full of grandeur and pomp, reminiscent of the anthems of fascistic empires.

From within himself he felt the threads of power spinning out across this universe and beyond, a thousand-billion filaments, all invisible yet sufficient to provide the weft and warp of a strong and flexible fabric, the very fabric of reality. He was the master of this cosmos now, its undying autocrat and pan-ultimate power. It was a power that he would use to fulfill the destiny he had been born to do.

It was time, he was empowered, he was a god! A supreme being with mastery over all. He was nearing the end. And it would be a wonderful beginning. And then there would be time enough at last.

_Time. There was no time._

_Time was sliding beneath him._

_The power..._

_The power was running amok!_

Pulsing waves of white energy exploded from his body. Where those waves touched; they _changed_. Space warped, changed colors sickeningly quickly. Lights flashed, the floor below him shattered and reformed, froze and melted a dozen times beneath his feet.

Nimble's harlequin costume shimmered and he lost all semblance of humanity an instant later; changing into a metal shape, roughly manlike in outline, from which protruded all manner of mechanical parts, as if he were now a sculpture of a jester made from metal odds and ends.

Snart's eyes burned away; he screamed as he grasped his sizzling sockets, cursing Luthor with his last breath as he died.

One half of Brainiac caught the blast and he was bisected, one side of his body stripped of his artificial flash to reveal the metallic skeleton and circuits beneath.

Bizarro was turned inside out, becoming a hollow tube of skin and bone surrounded by internal organs; his heart continued to beat, his more-than-human atoms and organs refusing to die even as this.

The fates of the rest of the Legion were similarly sealed. They shifted, becoming monstrous forms, twisting out of reality, changing into things whose biology was incapable of supporting life.

Luthor found himself transforming into something hideous. His hands became hammer-shaped. His toes hooked claws. His knees grew eyes that had no eyebrows. His tongue was satin. His saliva was glass. His blood was bile and his bile was blood. He screamed as the agony of change tore through him. _This should not be. _Mentally he attempted to rein in the power, succeeding in stabilizing his form before he became a horror.

The rest of existence was not so fortunate.

With a sound that was beyond sound, the waves flowed upward, higher and higher, searing the sky above. And still they reared higher away and ascended still into the darkness above, reaching towards the glittering stars. Whatever they touched, they either destroyed or changed beyond recognition.

His breath became deafening in the enclosed space of his helmet, ragged and quick. For a moment, his disorientation was almost complete. Stars, as vivid as he'd ever seen them, swept by as he fell through the floor, out of control and flailing.

He plummeted, a comet trailing fire. As he fell, his body continued to emit the wave of deadly, white energy.

Even as he fell, his new omniscience sensed what was happening, relayed ceaselessly to him what was occurring all across this universe. Every star in every galaxy in this universe was supernovaing. Every planet that orbited them was being blasted to pebbles, any life that walked, flew or crawled upon their surfaces died and any potential for life evaporated into atomic ash. It didn't cease there, he could feel the very gluons that held the atoms together fly apart in defiance of every physical law that Luthor knew; but the power of the Benefactor made mockery of physical, and now it was running amok. Entropy seemed to lay claim to all, before even its constants failed and was no more.

And just as the flaming galaxies collapsed into the gravitational pits of black holes, so too did Luthor feel the universe contract into a deadly singularity from which there could be no escape. There was a lightless flash of utter emptiness, a maelstrom of infinity, without direction, without beginning, without end, with neither sight nor sound nor self-awareness, and then he knew what just happened.

He had killed a universe.

More than that he had destroyed what he had sought to gain, and in doing so had lost everything.

He floated now in nothingness. The solitary survivor in an utterly empty cosmos. Unlike the Bleed, which was saturated by whites and oranges, here there was neither eternal whiteness, or nor was it a black void. The place truly was pure emptiness. Here was simply nothing, an absence of perception, blindness on all fronts.

And Luthor was trapped here, unable to move from this dead zone. Immortal as any deity, he imagined that if he examined his own tissues under a microscope he would find that they had ceased to die or renewed themselves; reproducing only if they were injured in some way. He could only float unchanging and trapped in his sarcophagus of armor, alone as no other being had ever been before. For he was the last living thing in what was once a universe of trillions of galaxies. Even the voice of the electrical entity within his armor had gone silent, as though it had been stunned into silence over the ultimate atrocity that he had done.

Again and again, he attempted to call upon the power that he taken from the Benefactor, to restore life to his armor, to open a portal back to his home universe, to accomplish anything. He even tried _ex nihilo_, attempting to re-create a universe from this void. But, all proved futile. Evidently the power relied upon the sculptor's reality in order to function, and here was there was no clay to manipulate. Besides him and his armor, there was no mass, and there was no energy, no light, no X rays, no cosmic rays or the slightest bit of warmth. He had burnt out his new-found omnipotence with his waves of annihilation and there was nothing left.

He was alone. Completely and terrifyingly alone. He had never known loneliness like this before. The shallow emptiness invaded his consciousness. Those who lived in a world of constant noise had never known the awesome experience of total silence. The complete vacuity of sound was overwhelming. The utter dearth of sensation extended to all his senses in this void. There was not even the blinking of lights on his helmet to draw his attention; the universal explosion having damaged the internal systems beyond their ability to self-repair. Mere inches from his flesh, outside the suit that enshrouded him, was an environment more hostile than any else in existence.

For what felt like several days, he wept, the only sound in the omnipresent silence, as he thought of the impossible sequence of events that had led to his being in this place, at this time. It had all happened so fast, leaving not enough time to think, not enough time to devise a solution.

Not that there was a solution. In one brief moment, he had lost every option, every choice, leaving him without recourse. He began to think of himself as a tiny blot upon the emptiness, an unwelcome impurity marring the simplicity and sterile perfection of oblivion.

Once he was a scientist. Once he had compared himself to Prometheus, and like the Titan of mythology, he had crossed the void to reach a high Olympus to steal its fire. But found that upon stealing the fire, he had lit an inferno that burned Olympus to the ground, had destroyed everything he had known. All that had gone before had wound toward this, spiraling in a mad rush toward this lonely conclusion he had never seen coming.

Everything was gone. All hope was gone. He wept bitterly, crushed by the unfathomable magnitude of what he had lost, of what he had done. It was all gone. Everything.

After his failure he turned his thoughts to suicide. Again and again he battered a fist against the transparent helmet, attempting to expose himself to the hostile environment of the void. In this too, he was a failure. The armor was impregnable to all things, including itself, and so Luthor remained alive.

He then turned his mind inward, attempting to remember every word of every book he had ever read. After he did that, he attempt recall the tune of every song that he ever listened. He then thought of the proofs and theorems of physics, mathematics, biology, and all the sciences he had ever studied, coming up with several novel solutions to problems that had previously baffled him. The joy of discovery was short-lived as he realized that there was no one alive in which to share the knowledge with, no one even to gloat to.

Everyone was dead.

Finally he did what he had never done in the entirety of his life. He did now what he never would have considered doing in any circumstance except in this, the end of all things.

Luthor prayed.

He did not know to whom or what he prayed. Perhaps he prayed to himself. Having so recently become God, it seemed appropriate.

"Please," he whispered. "Please say that this has not happened. Please. I'll do anything."

It was then that he felt a coldness, an iciness touching the center of his forehead, not in the least painful, but horrible all the same. At first he thought it was a sliver of the void that had entered his helmet through a flaw in its construction, but it was not.

Instead, it was a voice, a soft whisper inside his head.

_How many times have you been in this exact spot, said these exact words, and thought these same thoughts?_

_A hundred?_

_A thousand?_

_A million?_

Just in the center, the ghostly tendril held itself fast; it is hardly a pain, yet it bored a fine, dead-sure gimlet, towards the center of his brain, and at the touch, the void blinked away, sweeping away his words, his thoughts, sickening him in the transition.

In that instant he remembered, knew again where he truly was, what really had happened to him and how he come to be there.


	23. The One and the Many

Whoever said that there are no clocks in Hell was perhaps incorrect.

There was such a device and it kept perfect time. This device was located just within the helmet of Luthor's armor, inches from his right eye on the inside of the faceplate, and it always kept him aware of the date, and the hour and the minute...

...when he wasn't trapped in that loop of memory - that stretch of false time - where he believed that he escaped this cell to which he had been confined, and dreamed that he had stolen the might of the Benefactor and usurped the ruler-ship of this cosmos only to destroy it. It had happened many times before he finally broke through the webs of forgetfulness. Now, as he always did when he returned to the present, he remembered back to that now distant event, when he had first arrived.

He went from dead to the world to wide awake in a split second; everything that happen rushing back to his abused mind and threatening to drown him with sheer intensity all at once. He then curled in a fetal ball, rocking back and forth as he relived the once distant memories. He recalled that it wasn't how those events had happened at all. After the armor had completed its formation, after the Benefactor spoke to him regarding the existence of the Witch, Luthor had felt the anger, just as in the dream. But instead of breaking the paralysis and blasting his way free, he had instead fallen to the floor where he lay for what seemed like eternity. Time and gravity were no longer things he could rely on, they were mysteries. Strange, inscrutable mysteries.

He became simply immobilized, brain frantically struggling to make a hand move, a foot thrust; it was like trying to remain awake in the final extremities of exhaustion. He'd twist and thrash and wrench himself to push along a foot or so, then sink back into an inactivity he couldn't break no matter how frantically he tried. The armor was then his sarcophagus, and he lay within its confines as though he were a dead man. It was a tedium that was interrupted solely by the ministering servitors who entered and made adjustments to the armor encasing his body: adding, modifying, cleaning or removing. He recalled one incident when they had coated his armor in a sheen of paint and finish in the colors of purple and green - his colors - and then he felt them making incisions and indentations, as though defacing the armor's surface with their own version of graffiti, carving their endless marks and scribing sigils and spirals unknown to him. In all the time he had spent here, they never replied when he addressed them. They never answered any of his desperate questions, and ignored his shouted threats. If he crawled into a corner or made an attempt at fleeing for the door, they hauled and shoved him as though they were abattoir workers manipulating an animal's carcass.

During the long times, he would lie awake listening to the sounds of this place like whispers of the household gods. Most sounds he did not recognize, but a few were unmistakable: the noise of dragging footsteps, the metal-hammered clank of pipes expanding or contracting, the faint sounds of some grisly struggle, voices but no intelligible words. He lay very still, every muscle tense, hearing and not believing what he was hearing, not wanting to believe what he was hearing. Now and again there was a shriek—maybe rage, maybe pain, certainly madness—and the walls seemed to keep the echoes alive forever: low murmurings, almost whispers. The sibilant voices echoed off the walls, seeming to come from everywhere, reassuringly distant, terrifyingly close. And somehow the whispers were also a chorus, a choir, a multitude of voices in terrible harmony.

Most torturous were the times when the Benefactor visited him. It demanded union with his mind, his soul. It claimed that such merging was necessary for what it called _tutoring_. This was the worst part. Nothing was sacred. Nothing was private. All his thoughts, all of his memories were laid bare for examination, and like his armor, parts were removed or altered in this psychic mutilation, and parts were added - bits and pieces of thoughts not his own, thoughts that have only come from the pool of infinite malevolence that was the mind of his torturer.

Along with this examination came the influx of new thoughts, new memories and new concepts. He glimpsed futures that would never be, taught great secrets of science and arcane riddles of the metaphysical, and was told plans and strategies to overcome enemies that he had never heard of and would never encounter. He was instructed in the application of psychology and eugenics to turn a race of intelligent, cultured beings into a herd of servile, savage beasts. He now knew the science of atrocity; the weapon that split the atom was a mere toy next to the doomsday devices that he could build if given the time and necessary components. In the space of a year Luthor had learned more than in any of his previous years, and had also forgotten more than he had ever known before. Understanding and forgetting in the space of a few moments.

It was during those times that he was granted glimpses of just what the Benefactor was, how completely unlike the frail, twitching form of his vision it really was. Every time he saw these glimpses in his mind's eye, his mind rebelled at the truth, instead interpreting in images that he could understand: the touch of crawling vermin, Yin and Yang swirling into mixed colors, and a serpent that ate itself. Those were the times when he spasmed, sinking into the floor as he clutched his head in attempt to rip the presence of the voice from his mind. Those were the times when he screamed until he could scream no more, his voice would break and his mind descended into blessed unconsciousness.

And in unconsciousness he would forget all that, the entire nightmare completely erased from memory. His awareness of his present situation would be erased, and he would return to that same dream, the dream of escape, the dream of power, that vision of glory. Each vision took him back to when he had first arrived, only to erase his memory and begin it all over again. He could play back the entire experience almost as if it had been recorded on tape. Except for minor, trivial variations, the dream was always the same, from beginning to middle to end. Sometimes he acted to free the Citadel's prisoners and he led them in glorious battle against the hordes of guards. Other times he battled the voice's disciples who rose in defense of their master, pitting the strength of his new armor against the sword and the whip and the dart of the Black Queen of the Great Sea, the Torturer, the Spiteful Shadow and the Warlord. He knew all their names and titles now - every last one of them - and in dreams he effortlessly defeated them. In every vision, he would fight his way to the Benefactor's chamber, which was sometimes different. What always differed was the creature's final form. He remembered each one: a fetus-like child made of stars, a gestating pupa, an imprisoned angel with broken wings and covered all over in glittering gems, a monolithic stone idol that belched frigid smoke; frog-like and horned. No matter what form it took, it always begged and pleaded to him before he siphoned its cosmic might and took its place as the God of All. What was the same each time was the ending. The vision always ended the same way and always would.

He did have the occasional lucid moments when he tried to wake. But his tortured mind always refused to make the transition; indeed, the very thought of waking seemed to set off a mechanism that would plunge him back into the dream, some part of him deciding that the dream was preferable to confronting the anguish of a waking state. Was there no escape?

When he returned to the dark and the suffocating claustrophobia, the timepiece in his helmet could always be trusted to keep him aware of the date, and the hour and the minute. "_Each minute comprised of sixty seconds, which are roughly equal to the rhythm of my heart,"_ he recalled aloud. There was the taste of bile on his tongue, while his temples pulsated, not with pain, but with spasms of displaced energy, as he always did when he recalled the Benefactor's words. "_It is the same measure in both your universe and mine,"_ and a low, hysterical giggle bubbled out of him. The odd lunatic sound of his laughter frightened him a little. Hysteria was a sign of the loss of control.

Though the clock's display was arranged in alien numerals, he gradually came to be able to read them and understand them. That winding clock never failed him, and it seemed to be part and parcel of his torment. It seemed to mock him now by telling him that a year had passed. He could not believe it even with the evidence in front of him. Had it been only a year? It felt like forever.

It was obvious now. All control over his life had been wrested from him. He was trapped within this carapace, within this chamber, as if bound at the bottom of the sea. Engulfed by this pressure and cut off from all light and all hope, his brilliant mind could formulate no solution to the quandary forced upon him.

He wanted to be free of this sinister cell, this tomb of madness, but there was no clear escape, no relief from the mental tortures it inflicted upon him. Imagination was itself a prison, his dreams were bars, and there was no way out.

Except one, and it was the one that he had always considered at the end of the dream.

Was his predicament so that much different from the grave? After all his body would join his mind, waiting anxiously for all those invisible creatures who cohabited this universe to come and pry it apart, scavenging for freshly departed souls to munch on lost days and wasted years, stale ambition and unmet potential.

But even that solution was denied to him by his new predicament. Even if he could get to the electric chair-the only object in the chamber with him-and were it functional, he could not even reach it. On the contrary, his warsuit would just absorb that energy and use it to sustain him further. The armor was a closed system; no food or drink passed his lips, and yet he no longer felt any hunger or thirst. The armor was somehow continuously replenishing his body's reserves and removing any excretion; (or more likely it was recycling it endlessly). Whatever the reason the armor now fed and sustained him more efficiently than the natural mechanisms that normally carried fluids and nutrients to his cells. The armor was, in turn, fed by a power source that seemed to be inexhaustible as the cosmos, and he suspected that he could live forever inside it, unaging, undying...

_...un-living._

With a flutter of panic, he desperately cast that thought from his mind. He had to believe that he was still alive in some sense. As if to prove that his body still lived, his heart began to beat in steady, deep rhythm. He heard his racing pulse increase until his head thudded painfully in his chest with each thin, high beat. The blood rush caused his breath to quicken and his senses to expand. If only he could wipe the grit from his eyes, to feel his own face and flesh. It felt like it had been ages since he been sealed away from the sensation of touch.

He even doubted that he truly slept anymore, only dreaming the same vision over and over as his body received some form of rest and his mind was denied it by the nightmare. He didn't know if the vision was the Benefactor's doing, or if he had merely gone mad and in his madness his mind attempted to make the situation right, over and over and over again.

Sometimes, lying there awake, he imagined he could feel the metal of the armor's interior was spearing his skin and melting, and flowing into his tissues and veins to form clockwork to stud his flesh. He thought he could hear the agonized screams of the electrical entity trapped within, as its energy fields became part of his organic processes. At first he believed these sounds were indicating factors to an emerging schizophrenia. The armor's voice appeared to be independent, and yet it was a force within his mind; something completely divorced from his own psyche. He wondered where it had come from, and how it had come to be the power source of this suit that had become his tomb.

He lifted a hand to trace the shape the servitors had carved upon the center of his armor's chest-plate; the crescent symbol. He saw the grin with the teeth of glittering diamond in his mind again. Now he knew what it meant. For all the long months, the whole torturous year, he felt he had been on the verge of achieving a clarity of thought. He almost had it, the true meaning of the shape. The last secret of the nightmare was in place. It had been so clear. Why had he not realized it before this moment? It wasn't a moon or a grin. It was -

His speculations were interrupted. Something was about to happen. He felt that familiar, haunting, chilling presence that had so often awakened him from soothing dream to nightmarish reality.

Luthor could feel it in the very air itself, a rising tension. He turned and saw something dancing on the wall, a gathering of tiny, shifting shapeless bits of reflections on its green surface. They were faint at first, but gradually they grew larger. He heard a distant chiming, cold and pure and sweet. Like bells of glass or crystal, like the twinkling of tiny chimes of ice, ringing, crystalline music.

Blinking sweat from his eyes, he gazed frenziedly between shadows, and he knew that the entity was there beside him in the darkness, like a eldritch mist arising from a corner of the room, not moving, and he wanted to scream. But his throat, his jaw, his voice, was paralysed by the fear it invoked. The fear was something that could not be denied. He was afraid of the room itself, as if its evil were seeping from its very walls, permeating the air with its corruption, transposing through the armor and creeping into him with malign intent, as though the very floor were trying to drain his will, replacing it with fear.

Already he could feel the urge to retreat from the reality of his situation, could feel the potential relief from the ever-present fear by falling into the same dream of escape, of victory, of loss and eventually imprisonment. It was so difficult when he had nothing left in him.

The air in front of him coalesced into a transparency. It glowed. Vapor rose over the floor. It congealed, a substance like smoke, but denser. A faint glimmer of dim light spread out from the floor—cold it was, and blue and white, like brilliance that was reflected from mirrors of ice. The walls around it glowed, seemed to expand, until he had no sense of space, no feeling for depth, only the rising, rolling light.

In that instant he knew that the Benefactor, or some manifestation of it, was present. He knew it immediately and instinctively. He had shared an unknown, hideously intimate twelve months with it. Host and parasite, joined mind with mind, soul and soul in an almost symbiotic, nightmare existence.

Now. A solid thing now, emitting the ghostly brightness of morning fog; for the Benefactor was _not _a being of darkness, not a creature of the shadows.

No. Not darkness. Never of darkness. The Benefactor was a being of the brightest light, and it was here in the chamber with him, standing within arm's reach of him.

Instinctively he raised his arm, he was allowed that much movement. And though he covered his eyes, he couldn't _not_ see its light. His eyelids slammed tightly shut; tears trickled from aching slits at both corners. The light was so much more than he was, so intense that he could hear it caress his flesh, seeking out his secret places, his organs, his thoughts, illuminating each fissure and furrow in his very brain. He knew what the light was. His mind could smell it. It was a touch of crawling snakes. It was the face of the gorgon seen reflected in a mirror. And it was here again. It had knitted itself a physical form and it was standing over him. The thought was a scalpel across his brain, but he instinctively turned from it and just lay there like a dead man.

"That is correct. That is _right_. Look away," that smooth voice, that cool voice, its tones fatherly and reassuring, that soothing voice that could not be disobeyed. The voice was no longer distorted by distance or device. It spoke to him directly now. "Even protected as you now are, to see me is to die or go mad."

"But I've seen you...seen your face, all your faces..." The words slipped out across his tongue and teeth and lips like his own ghost's death rattle.

"Delusion. Figments of your own mind. You know what I am. You know that I don't really look like that. Just like the rest of your dreams, your mind saw what it wished to see, what it imagined I was. Perhaps such visions were inspired by that piece of children's literature?"

The heading shot up toward him in his memory's eye: _The Wizard of Oz._ A story about an old man whose amplified voice and awesome mask allowed him to rule.

"If I were to show you what I really am," the voice continued. "Your heart would seize, and your mind would be as ash. A condition in which you would useless to both of us. My one mistake was showing Grodd, and he is not the same."

He felt it growing nearer. He could almost feel the depth of its light permeating the armor, raising the temperature by a few degrees. Unconsciously he sweated.

"Still, I am curious. What is it that you want? My power? My manifest glory? I would have given it all to you if you merely asked!" For the first time, he heard it chuckle, an expression of true mirth.

"No!" he screamed, despising himself for the tremor in his voice. Hating the weakness of it. "I don't want any of this!"

"No, I thought not. Power alone is not enough. One must fully understand the power, the possibilities of it, the beauty of it, and the art with which it must be employed in order to achieve the most satisfying effects. That alone requires much time and much reflection, centuries at least, and you would had only moments."

"I don't want to be like you!"

"You already are," the Benefactor said. "But the question remains: what do you want? Tell me, _confess_ yourself to me."

A panel slid from the floor with a sound like the metallic whir of a guillotine. From the space a podium rose. It was the same podium that he and the others had used in their meetings, the same one placed here in mockery; pristine condition, not having been touched in the last year.

"Is it this?"

Atop the podium, in a recessed holding, in its battered casing was the time conveyor. Luthor blinked once and then again. The sight of it sent a shiver down his spine, and put a dryness to his mouth.

"Take it if you desire."

"I can't move," he said.

"On your own? No, of course not," the Benefactor said. "A year of physical inactivity has atrophied your muscles. Sometimes I am amiss to mortal frailties. Trust in the war-suit and it will provide."

There came a tornadic rush of wind. Luthor felt himself being lifted up, yet nothing touched him. His pulse raced, and he felt the surge of adrenaline that came with the familiar pricks as the injecters in his armor fed chemicals into his bloodstream, priming his muscles for action. As the levitating force left as quickly as the rush of an autumn wind, he found himself standing; the legs of the suit forming support for his wasted and atrophied muscles, bracing them and allowing him to stand with only mild discomfort.

Standing he paused and the light shone across his bald plate of a head. With booted feet he walked slowly, a little unsteadily, but he could certainly walk. The armor's weight, as it was was in the dream, was no quite easily manageable. He walked towards the waiting conveyor, leaned down, and slowly picked the device up and brought it close to his faceplate to look at it as though it were something from a half-forgotten childhood.

Studying the conveyor, he recalled that beneath its tarnished surface lay the swirling eddy of the black hole; a power great enough to cross universes and swallow suns. For a few seconds, he considered his capability to end it now.

Just then, images came to the walls, crawling across their surfaces as though projected there by an unseen projectionist. Each panel of the wall became a screen, and their illumination cast dancing shadows across the cell. Each screen held the same image.

His face filled every screen; that hated, despised face of his enemy. The face framed by that dark split-curl and smiling that confident grin. His mouth was moving, and while Luthor could not hear the words he knew what the face was saying. He remembered it all, as though it were happening again.

"_They got away this time. But we'll be there to beat them next time. We always beat them."_

"_Always beat them..."_

The line echoed in his head.

"_ALWAYS_ _beat them..."_

If only he could shut him up.

"_WE ALWAYS BEAT THEM!" _the unheard voice was now shouting in his head, demanding that he acknowledge the truth of those words, admit his weakness and his failure.

The face underwent a horrifying change. There was something not right about it. A shadow highlighted the face of Superman's cheekbone with dreadful prominence and making the cheek and mouth seem somehow sunken. It seemed to have melted away the flesh on that side of his face, leaving only a parchment-gray covering of skin stretched over and highlighting the skull beneath. Despite the dreadful change, the face seemed uncaring. The face still held that taunting smile, a smile made worse by the shrunken lips, curling back to expose skull-like teeth.

He turned his eyes from that hideous transformed face to the the device in his hand. Its heart promised infinite darkness. Infinite silence. Immeasurable cold. Infinite emptiness. Nothingness. Something he desired more than anything.

He felt that he would be allowed to perform this action, that he wouldn't be halted from from doing it should he attempt it. There would no one to stop him. The Benefactor was behind him. He imagined that it was smiling - if it even possessed anything like a face - gloating at this last temptation, this cruel choice that would either end everything, or prove which drive was stronger.

_There's no future for me. All my life I've been stuck in a rigged game. The dice are loaded and I was declared a loser before I even began to play. What choice was I ever given? Only this one, right here, right now. There is only this. I have only to crush it in my hand, or bring my fist down. I could drop it and place my heavy foot upon it and it would break. Any of these would smash the plate-end the nightmare. The black hole would expand outward and consume this place and its master. He would be dead, and I as well. Being dead, I won't remember. I will no longer think about what has happened to me. I have only to do this simple thing._

Luthor couldn't.

However much he desired it now, no matter how deep a chasm he had fallen, he could not die while the hated, pampered Superman remained among the living. It was a desire beyond the Thanos imperative, a need as great as thirst or need for breath.

A small voice in the back of Luthor's mind shouted at him, informing him that he was being manipulated, that he was not thinking straight. That was all a show to force him into a choice that was no choice at all. Dual impulses. Two minds. Schizophrenia. Or merely the mutterings of a conscience, and conscience was a consequence of intellect, which itself had no physical substance. It was all one and the same.

It was obvious. If he died here, if he tasted vengeance by killing himself and the Benefactor by breaking the conveyor, Superman would live. But if he instead trusted in the Benefactor and used the conveyor for another purpose, then who knows what might then be possible? Might he...

"No," he managed. "I want this all to end, but not this way. I want..." The words were hard. He had never had to resort to this before. I..."

"Yes?"

"...I will do as you will. But..."

"Yes?"

"But..."

"Yes?"

"...only if t_hey_ lose everything."

"Who?" the voice asked. "The Justice League? Or do you mean the useless cattle that they watch over and claim to represent? Or perhaps you mean that cruel and insidious puppet master that directs their actions?"

"All," he answered. "All of them are culprit. All are counted as enemies. I realize that now. It was always true."

"As they are mine. And I would have not promised it if it were not so. How you still limit yourself, despite your potential. But I can teach you no more. The others were far more attentive in their lessons. But you have moved beyond despair to vengefulness, and that is enough."

"The others?" He asked. Dreading the answer.

Instead of answering vocally, the familiar sensation of the tutoring began once again and thoughts that were not of his own consciousness pushed into his mind. Visions rose around him, the colors vivid and fresh, the details perfectly defined, as though they were being lived at that moment. Slowly some began to dominate the others, dispersing weaker memories - less significant memories - to the peripheries of his mind. Luthor blinked, long and hard, but the visions would not disappear.

What did he see? What did he hear? What did he feel?

* * *

A poisonous green jungle of twisted trees, grasses, and bushes, growing from soil the color of blood. Thin, twisted forms moved furtively in the shadows, creatures trying desperately to hide from something.

* * *

He felt his whole body contract. The intense burning as his skin shriveled, his muscles tightened, his bones contorted to accommodate the new shape.

But the ring would keep him whole...the ring and the lantern. They would never be separate. He was so cold now that he had lost the outermost layer of his epidermis, but the lantern would keep him warm. The ring. The lantern.

* * *

**[REM]: course: del target Master_Programer**

It was a babble of symbols, a chorus of quaternary code, numbers extending into infinity. He knew that this was all a symbolic representation of the infinite stores of knowledge that had been previously mysterious; a flood of alien concepts and ideas that had gushed into the empty gulf that was once his mind and filled it to overflowing, hollowing it out and expanding it, changing it..

As the mind had changed, so that his body. It had been stripped of its fragile semblance to the humaniod form, had instead been recast in the image of death: the death that he would bring to the Master Programmer and its angels.

* * *

He could hear noises all around, bathypelagic echoes, deep-ocean sounds like the low rumbles of the cold, mournful songs and cries of some species dwelling in the deepest reaches of the sea. But while whale songs were often melodic, these sounds were not. Whale songs were rather beautiful. This sounded thick and phlegmy.

The water gurgled, babbled, talked as the sea talked. The sounds were tangible as the taste of blood and iodine in her kiss.

_Who was '_she_?'_

There was no time to consider that thought. He was clawing his way to the surface of a boiling, acidic sea. He was drowning in it and something told him he would lose more than his life if he did not surface soon.

* * *

There is no day here, no night, no time. He had been liberated.

His bones felt cold; his hands and feet, distant and insensate. Each breath was a knife of ice, boring into pierce his lungs repeatedly.

The cold.

The cold spoke to him. It told him what it wanted of him in the hexagons of snowflakes, and the secret calligraphy of hoarfrost. It told him of the great things that he must do, for he was the chosen of the cold.

* * *

He stood on the shore of a wild lake bound with black rock and trees that towered all around.

The grinning moon in the black sky was a snarling moon on the black water. Poisonous waves lapped at the stones on which he stood, and something rose in the center of the lake, some behemoth beyond measuring, from which sloughed the inky water and with it the wriggling moon.

* * *

He stared into the reflection and felt the urge to weep, but his tear ducts had burned away.

"Why..?" He felt his lips move unhindered for the first time since his birth, gurgling with the unfamiliarity. "Why me not am so un-handsome?"

He let the crushing sadness come and would speak no more. He smashed the mirror and kept smashing, the glass breaking against invulnerable skin.

* * *

He cut the piano wire strings and let the lingering chrysalis that was all that remained of the man he once was collapse into a disjointed jumble of twisted limbs.

"Very good," he heard the voice say, smooth and purring like a contented cat. "Very good. The strings are cut, and the puppet is free."

* * *

Surrounded by blinking machines: cathode tubes with oscillating sigma waves, held as though crucified in the retraining silver hands. The Benefactor's voice whispering, "There is such potential within you...such potential for _growth_."

Opened up.

Insides exposed.

Machinery implanted and chemicals injected into veins.

_Will not scream._

* * *

He clapped his hands to either side of the helmet and shook himself, trying to rid his mind of the voices and images, afraid they would drive him completely insane with their babel, but instead, he sank into them, joining with their mutterings as though he were part of them, that their thoughts were also his. The pressure of their thoughts mounted, pounding within his ear, imprinting directly into his own thoughts.

Then it all ceased. Abruptly. And it seemed, permanently.

"What is this?" he whispered. "What have you done to them?"

"What I have done? What _we_ have done. They have been _sifted_. They have been _prepared_. And most of all they have been empowered." The voice were mild, but its tone was confident. "Your foes are mighty and I would not have you go against them without full strength."

Without a signal the door flew open, the sound a cacophony in the tomb-like silence that had pervaded the chamber for a year.. The corridor beyond that doorway was twilit, uninviting, and it echoed with the Benefactor's voice as it carried over a loudspeaker.

"Walk to them," the voice led him on, urging and enticing, a disembodied and spectral presence. "See them with generous eyes. Do not be afraid. I promise. There is nothing to fear."

The words floated all around him as he made his way down the hall.

"After all," the voice added. "You are the same as them."

The voice echoed down a long tunnel to him as he walked in a place between wakefulness and true sleep, between denial and acceptance, between one Hell and another.

"...same as them...same as them...same as them...same as them..."

_I am not, _he thought._ You have tortured me, imprisoned my body, violated my mind and memories laid my soul bisected and raw. But I am still here, and I will do this, for myself as much as for you, and for now I will do as you say. I will walk to them. I will see what has become of them, and I will walk among them._ _At least,_ _I will no longer be alone._

As he walked a heaviness fell upon him. At times he felt that the war-suit was using him as its skeleton, that it had a will of its own, existing parasitically on his mind and spirit. On other occasions the armor felt light and he was in control, but those moments were few and far between. Most of the time it was heavy. Now it was far worse than that. Every footstep felt heavy because the armor was heavy, and now the trapped essence of the armor refused to nullify gravity on his behalf. It resisted him like a living thing, a reluctant host. Each booted step was laborious, heavy and mechanical, accompanied by the whine of servo-mechanisms and the grind of hydraulics. It felt as if he were underwater, trying to wade forward across a silty ocean floor while weighed down. The armor felt like a lead weight about his body.

The phantom electrical entity within the armor wanted to refuse him, resist him, and he was at least partially limited by that desire. He could not resist it, but the armor could resist him. All the while he could hear its whisper. There were no words, just a murmur that seemed to be pleading with him. It tried to tell him to turn around and walk back to his cell. It told him that everything would be alright if only he returned to his spot on the floor and did nothing else but that.

Why would it tell him that? What could possibly be gained by remaining still?

The voice seemed to sense that it might lose the battle. Unable to stop him, it caused him to stumble. The floor seemed to shift like the hinged base of a fun house in a carnival, and it forced him to lean against the wall as he walked, lest he be pitched forward and lose his balance.

A hand reached out and caught his fall. The hand was real and solid; not an illusion, not a spectral form.

He moved his head in the direction of the one that had steadied him and spoke her name: "Giganta..."

...or who had once been Giganta.

The red-haired woman's skin was no longer healthily bronzed, but pale white as though she spent long periods in darkness. Her face in particular had lost nearly all its color, except for a bruised and ugly bluish cast beneath her eyes; as if she'd drowned some time ago and her body only just now been hauled from the water. Those dark smudges beneath her eyes were the shadows of insomnia and madness. Then he saw the hollow of her skinny throat, her sunken chest, limp breasts that were wasted and dry; she was naked.

"I..." he began; a hoarse whisper. Her appearance came to him almost as a relief. For the first time in a long time the tension left his features. He could feel his lips turn to smile as if he'd found a long lost friend.

He remembered their last meeting, and felt an uncharacteristic stab of shame. He thought how much of a frightful figure he must appear: a pale face staring out through a globular helmet of adamant glass that made him resemble a creature from another world.

_It was my fault._ He wanted so desperately to say; words that his previous self would never dare speak, never dare even think._ But I couldn't help what happened. Really. Things are different. We can help each other._

Her bloodshot eyes, wide open, the pupils black and large seeming to have been engulfed by her pupils, locked onto his. But they were not seeing him, he realized. They seemed to have no focus, seemed to stare right through him, as though there was nothing behind them, and if there was, it was not human. After a few moments those eyes rolled away from him, as though searching for something, and she suddenly wheeled away, shuffling down the long hallway toward the chamber at the end.

Having turned, he saw the stitches all over her bare back. Smudges of dried blood had formed around where she had been opened and then sewn up.

She had spoken not a word to him, and he wondered what was going through her mind.

_Her mind_, he thought. _Perhaps she doesn't have a mind any more. Maybe she'd just a walking puppet; an embodied version of the nightmare._

He wanted nothing more than to follow her, to leave his solitary cell with its darkness and the tantalizing dream-visions that its silence evoked in him. He wanted to get away from there, wanted to take deep, fresh untainted breaths again. It was a need, an obvious and inexplicable need; as inexplicable as a yearning to see just once more, open skies and green, and to feel the warm scented wash of freely moving air again. It would require him to proceed forward, and he took another step.

But an inner, more cautious voice begged him not to go, begging him to stop. He could feel it now, the internal conflict beginning again, whispering in his head. _Do not follow her, do not do this._ Luthor mentally silenced it, knowing at the same time, that it would re-emerge just as persistent as ever. If only it would leave him alone and let him walk this single distance. The armor's pull on gravity momentarily tightened around his feet, as if sending him a final warning, and then it relaxed its grip. He was free.

He staggered forward down the straight corridor that seemed endless in length and all notion of time faded into obscurity and soon Luthor was unable to tell if he had walked this path for hours or minutes. A strange vertigo washed over him. It felt as though the walls of the corridor around him were expanding in every direction, stretching away into the vastness of infinity. He caught the dimmest shimmer up ahead. With every step the light seemed to swell, faint bluish glow now, and he could almost make out the corridor's walls, glimmering like green glass; dark red blotches in their centers.

With much difficulty, he stepped forward and was almost to the threshold of the first chamber - the arena - where everything had first begun. He gave no thought to the impossibility of it being here. When he had traveled to his solitary cell with the Warlord, he had passed through untold miles of hallways and corridors, and up at least one flight of stairs. Now all those leagues of corridors were gone, and there was only this single hallway bridging his cell from the arena. And why should he question? He had gotten used to this truth: this Citadel and the universe where it was contained was _his _domain. It obeyed the entity that was its master and deity. It might as well have been an extension of its essence. At times when he was laying in the floor of his cell, he imagined that he could feel the walls quivering in anticipation. Of course, such feelings were likely to be the symptoms of his own rapidly-deteriorating mind. But in this place, with its darkness, and its ministering minions of flesh and glass, who could tell what was real?

For a second he stood in the dimness, and there was only darkness. And the barely audible hum of machinery. A thin sliver of blue light split the darkness. The light was a bluish pallor streaming down from above. The gentle light splashed upon him, warmer and more bluish than the darkness he had grown accustomed to for so long.

He had expected the light of the arena even as it ignited, but he had not fully been prepared for what it revealed. Nor was he prepared to find himself slightly airborne with that step onward - crossing without warning into a higher gravity, he lost his balance and fell to the hard silvery floor. Then, with care, he found his feet once more and stood in stunned silence, drinking in the sight before him.

The arena chamber with its central platform rose in majesty, a vast cavernous space. Walking farther in, he found that he could very nearly see in the pervasive gloom, but not quite. Not knowing where else to go he walked forward towards that central platform.

If he looked up into the darkness at the periphery he knew he would see them looking down at him from their high thrones: the lords and ladies of this place, the lesser deities, the divine aristocracy. Now he could feel their eyes upon him, watching his every move, and knew that his every secret thought was known to them. Those disciples of the Speaker in Dreams, whom all Heavens and all Earths had fled. Once he had compared himself to Prometheus, and like the Titan of mythology, he had crossed the void to reach a high Olympus to steal its fire from the gods, only to find that the gods were inscrutable and alien things and their actions were horrifying. Gods that looked deeply into the evil of his soul, and they laughed at its minusculity, for they found it to be infintistinally small compared to the limitless perdition of eternal wickedness they held sway over. If only it had stopped with the laughter, if only it had ceased with the mockery, if only it had ceased with his death. But it didn't. They hadn't been content with his impotence, with his small place in the grand scheme of things. In Luthor they had found a kindred spirit, a worthy receiver for their learned experience in the craft of evil.

And Luthor had been an apt pupil.

But he hadn't been the only one. No. There still the _others._

There was still darkness outside the light, and Luthor stiffened when he saw that there was movement among those shadows. He could hear several things shuffling from the blackness of the arena's darkened corners. In the periphery of vision, he saw them stir. He heard murmurs, the rustlings of clothing. The shuffling continued, a soft, scuffling approach, disembodied sounds until the shapes began to emerge from the shadows, most of them crawling, some stooped and bent, stumbling as if injured. The shapes moved in the light's glare, but still shadows hid the worst of their appearances from him as though ashamed of what had been done to them.

The dim glow from the blue spot began to give them some form, appearing to waver as they emerged. Some of them appeared to be whispering to themselves. There were other sounds as well - peculiar sounds: a catlike hiss, a rustle of scale against stone, a low growl and many wordless exclamations.

Most of them were not standing, were not even moving; But by no means were all of them inactive. Luthor's appearance had apparently roused some of the beings, as the blue light appeared to follow his walk as though he were under a spotlight.

He followed the narrow path between them, and some turned to watch him pass with empty, hungry eyes. A few of their ragged limbs reached out to the light and to Luthor, like hunched demons rising from unhallowed earth, like the dead reaching out to embrace and initiate the living, like lepers begging to be healed, beseechingly...pleading, imploring, praying. Others lay motionless as if entranced or dead, sitting inert, slack of jaw and vacant of eye, with only the occasional jerk of a limb to betray the presence of life. Others, less tranquil, bellowed and quietly wept, shook as if afflicted by fever.

Luthor walked pass a section of indented floor, a space filled with acid-yellow liquid that formed a pool which appeared to be polluted water, clear in some places but cloudy in others. The rippled surface spun the quivering light and shadows into purling patterns that severely distorted the black figure that swam there. Only the two red lights that were its eye revealed its presence. Discerning details of the person—or thing—in that water was difficult to see. He saw its arms, legs, a basic human form, yet the overall impression was of something deeply strange. The swimmer did not frog kick nor breaststroke. The dark shape moved under the surface, sleek, swift, as fully at home underwater as any fish, appearing to undulate with the muscular sinuosity of a shark, propelling itself in a way no human being could. From the black, polluted water rose a black, rubber-clad hand, a hand that lashed out to snatch at the edge of Luthor's boot. He would have been pulled back into the water if he hadn't kicked furiously with his right foot. A second hand rose from the water. In the second hand was a spear but, instead of a spearhead, the shaft was tipped with a thin spine, like the stinger of a stingray.

He ignored this sight and continued moving towards the light, each booted step thudding. He stepped around colossal metal legs as long as the girders of construction buildings. Those were legs, the bodies that they were attached to were lost in the darkness. Over the thud of his footsteps, he could just hear the twinkling of silver bells.

As he walked forward, an apparent corpse and the tallest of the figures so far, returned to life, suddenly wide-open eyes glinting, hitherto its silent throat erupted, clanking its chains, spewed bloody froth, and grasped for him. The figure was pallid white, decaying flesh phosphorescent in the darkness. Long spikes of petrified wood thrust through its pale skin at each joint, along the eyebrow ridges and spine. Its lips and eyelids swollen and hideous, eyes glazed, expression insane. Despite the figure's speed, Luthor was able to easily sidestep its clumsy advance, ignoring its outrage to proceed forward toward the center of the chamber.

More vague shapes began to take on form as they drew closer. More whispers came from the moving shadows, and then murmurings.

"Riddle..." He turned towards the sound; a gasping sigh, a word constantly repeated by a familiar voice. "Riddle-riddle-riddle...me."

The voice came from a cowering, illustrated figure; one that covered his eyes from the light, his legs curled up in a fetal position. His body was so emaciated that Luthor was thankful that at least the shadows obscured the worst of his nakedness. At first he thought that his flesh had been tattooed with ink and dye. Looking closer, he realized that the tattoos were deep scratches in the man's flesh, every inch of him was covered in small, illegible words and symbols. Narrowing his focus, he tried hard to make something of them but did not succeed. Of all the sigils marked on the man's body he did not know a single one.

"Riddle me...riddle me...riddle me...riddle me..." The words were repeated over and over again so that they became a litany. The man hugged himself and rocked, sobbed then laughed in turns.

He turned away in disgust, and then spied in his path a crouching, feminine shape dressed in a darkened cowl of reptilian leather and mammalian pelt. Barbaric ornaments and necklaces of claws and fangs dangled from her shoulders and limbs; fetishes of bone and blood-matted hair. She was drawing her long, jagged nails across her own flesh and lapping at the blood that was drawn as a house cat would lick its paws. He took a step towards her, and she turned suddenly at his motion and he saw her feverish blue eyes burning with fury. Her face was no longer beautiful but ridden with malevolence; her teeth bared in an unvoiced snarl. She was now a savage thing; eager, driven by hungers unthinkable.

She was about to rise, about to leap forward and perhaps strike at him. It was then that a powerful hand snaked out of the darkness and took the woman's shoulder; the hand's hideousness made the gesture seem like a mockery of affection, of comfort and of gentle restraint. The hand wasn't human, not even close; it was far too large and there were far too many knuckles, and those knuckles were thicker, gnarled, bonier. The hand's color was mottled brown-black-yellow. Coarse hairs sprouted from the skin, which contained patches of scales. The fingernails were hooked talons, impossibly elongated and gave off a metallic sheen in the blue light. With a suddenness that surprised Luthor the arm that was attached to that hand rose up; hinged not like a human arm, but segmented with one too many joints. A dark shape rose up behind the feral woman, and the being that both limbs belonged to was revealed.

In the blue light and shadows, it seemed immense, though rationally he estimated it to be only six and a feet tall. He saw it only in silhouette: massive and misshapen head, snout-like protrusion and jaws, darting tongue like a snake. He stared down at the feet, and they were huge and flat, the five root-like toes sprayed flat against the floor. Its other arm hung at its side, its talons scraping against the silver floor with a clicking, chitinous sound, and from one shoulder was sculpted a single, ornamental crow's head. The thing's immense head rolled and bobbed strangely, and when it opened its jaws, he got a glimpse of immense teeth like that of a shark, and Luthor knew that the creature was smiling at him.

He backed away from this new aberration, and walked around them. He moved past a crouched, dark-haired man of large size hunched over the silver floor, with his head down. The cape hanging from his muscular shoulders was no longer purple, now a shade of a deep crimson. _Just like his_, he thought. Now they would truly be identical to an unfamiliar observer. But Luthor could never confuse the two. Even altered, Luthor recognized his own handiwork in the kneeling creature before him. The creature held one hand over his face as though weeping, and the other tracing over the surface of the polished floor and the reflection held there.

Empowered? No. If anything, they looked diminished. He thought he saw one of them, a standing cloaked figure tightly wrapped in yellow cloth, illuminated by flickering glow of the ring on one of his skeletal fingers, smiling at him, and then he realized that the fire had eaten away the flesh from his lips to reveal the teeth underneath.

No. There was nothing of those qualities in any of them. Now, it was hard to think of these unsteady, shambling figures as people he once knew.

_But surely Braini-but no!_ When he turned in the direction of his former ally, only the eyeless sockets of death returned his gaze, pitiless and alien. The figure whose those empty sockets belonged to stood tall and gleamed metallically; the blueish light glittered off the geodesic hemisphere of its swollen cradium. Those sockets, while empty still studied him, recording everything, missing nothing.

"Here is your Hall."

He turned, staring past the skeletal figure with its enlarged cranium and gleaming metallic body, leading up into the darkness. He stared into the darkness and at first he could see only a slight curvature, like a hole in darkness leading to greater darkness.

He narrowed his eyes. _Please, I want to see it._ In response to his unspoken desire his helmet's settings changed to night-vision, and he saw it at last.

Behind the skeletal, silvery figure of the Coluian rose the new Hall of Doom. It was now substantially larger than he ever dreamed it could be. Impossibly huge, like a moon rising, the dome of its top curved upwards as large as a cathedral dome, glittering with silvery geodesic tiles. Like everything else, it was now a nightmarish thing; contorted and utterly alien in design. Its eyes of black obsidian had been gouged out, and the mutilated sockets now bristled with thorn-like armaments: missiles and the ports of weapon emplacements. Like the death's head it resembled, the Hall now possessed a lower jaw, a mandible from which protruded ulcer-like thrusters for propulsion and additional instruments of war. The slit that was its mouth was large enough to swallow armies.

Uncannily both Hall and Coluian now resembled one another. Surely this was more evidence of the madness that ruled this plane of existence.

He looked down and around and saw the tubular structures extending from its underside like a beard. Were those fuel cables snaking around like roots? Umbilicals? Surely those were not tentacles. For what purpose could such monstrous appendages serve if the vessel was merely meant for travel?

That train of thought was interrupted as the voice spoke.

"Your friend is fully acquainted with the interrelated complex of parts and principles that make it a functioning craft. It is the merest fraction of the knowledge I have given to him."

When he had started his walk to the center, he had wanted to see them, to perhaps feel special, he had wanted to know that his own afflictions were nothing compared to these aberrants. Now, he wanted to raise his hands to block the sight of the horrors gathered in the room, but their faces had already entered his mind and they could not be erased. Still he saw what had become of them.

He could hear their voices now, although they made no sense, were incoherent murmurings and mutterings and screeches, the sound of chaos, the discord of bedlam. Some were leaving the darkened corners to converge on him. He heard their baying and screaming. Even filtered, he imagined that he could smell their sickly, rancid sweat and filth of their unwashed bodies.

If he were told that he was in Hell and that these beings were the suffering damned, he would believe it in an instant.

But he knew better. These were not lost souls; these were his allies. He was responsible for them being in this condition. He was the one who had led them here and instigated everything, and now they were his to command.

And he knew now that this was not Hell.

Quite the opposite.


	24. Legion

He could endure it no longer. His whole body suddenly revolted. His empty stomach demanded to throw up its contents, his legs cried out to collapse under his armor's weight, his head refused to think, only to fear. Luthor sank to his knees and hid his eyes from what had become of the others, but there was no escape for their images were inside his head.

Several of the figures surged forward at him, attempting to mob him in a flash of white limbs and snapping claws. They roared him down and attempted to stamp him underfoot. They dragged him hither and thither. For this, he raised an armored arm and with one sweep, dislodged whoever it was clinging to him from his back. He heaved himself further upwards, easily throwing off two more scrawny bodies that had leapt up on him, and grabbed his assailant by the lapels to lift his head and shoulders from the floor. At the same time he brought down his helmet in a short but extremely hard movement. He fell away from his stunned victim and rolled onto his back on the silver floor.

Others were coming for him, but were then driven back by the arrival of the Benefactor's horrible light, and the blasting chords of beatific music acting in perfected harmony. They scattered like a mob of frightened rabbits, breaking in every direction without order or reason.

"Back! Back!" the tone was chiding, joyous. "How discourteous you treat your true leader, my anointed one! Stand, Luthor, the ruler of Earth kneels to no one!"

With the coming of the light, the chorus became a babble, a hellish cacophony of wails and moans, of implorations and appeals, of rage and reproach. They knew of the maddening light and feared its searing touch from prior experience.

The blaze of light faded as suddenly as it appeared. The music continued to emanate from the center of the arena, swelling to crescendos, fading, and roaring out again; a baroque combination of chords, rests and flourishes, incredibly lush and deranged, dissonant, madder and madder, sweeping in glorious circles as the dazzling shaft of white light bathed the figures in its wild, jittering spotlight.

The deranged waltz tapered off, replaced by beating of the great drum that underpinned all other sounds, thumping out a heartbeat rhythm of dissonant savagery. Other drums joined it, working against the single note in a cacophonous, barbed disharmony. The vibrations colored everything, making the chamber resonate with a growing crescendo of hatred and energy.

"Aren't you going to speak to them?" The voice asked. "Inspire them with your oratory? Reassure them of inevitable victory? Show them who is in command?"

Luthor said nothing, utterly speechless before this latest turn of events, this new display of fresh horror.

"No?" The voice questioned, hovering from the air above him. "Then I shall."

The voice spoke over the music. "Hear me! You are mighty. You are magnificent. You have been reborn and re-formed and given a destiny new, and I am well pleased to say that you will soon return to that place that birthed you to begin your great and epic adventure."

Even as the emptiness took hold of him, the armor responded. The injections of chemicals and brain-wave regulators took over, and in moments he felt no fear. Now there was the ego and the sure knowledge of might and right, divine permission to do anything and not to feel concern or fear while doing it. He had looked for something complicated, something buried. That was why he'd never seen it. It never was buried, never concealed. From the very beginning, it was too easy to see. A truth hiding in plain sight.

_Do what you want, Luthor. What you will, because power is the only thing that matters._

There was silence. There was no further need of words. Everything had already been said. They had been told everything. They were one. They were many.

_They were Legion!_

"Go boldly into this future and share with those you meet all that you have learned," the voice said. "Your Benefactor cares for you more than you have the capability to know."

Though Luthor could not look at them, they looked upon him. The others saw: the man in armor there, in front of them, was standing in the place of the One. For them, Luthor and the Benefactor melted into one. Man and deity deserving of the same fear.

As he stood watching them cower before his form, outlined in the Benefactor's radiance, he could feel the vibrancy, the exhilaration, the power of the Benefactor surging through him, wiping away his despair and fear. The light empowered him and he was no longer afraid of them, for they now shared with him their thoughts.

He wanted to see them, wanted to experience them. He wanted to be them. And he was. It now felt as if mental strands extended out to all of them; things cold and liquescent, icy tendrils that held their wills and aligned their thoughts.

There would be no more need for the Benefactor to tutor him in the ways of evil, no more need to even hear it speak. They had been so close together that the thoughts of one were in line with the thoughts of the others. The process had involved the most hideous mental torture he had ever known. But the promise of vengeance had sustained him; had saved him from self-destruction. It had all been enough.

He finally and fully felt the newness of this existence; could feel now how he had been changed in mind, if not in body. The war-suit was no longer his prison, but his body, with metal skin impervious to harm. Its power source of electricity was his heart and stomach, supplying him with all the energy he would ever need. Its sensor suite was his eyes and ears. Its weapons and systems were fully at his command.

Luthor remained still for a while, savoring the bliss of the power and the hatred. And he opened his eyes and looked at the others before him. Saw them cower, waiting for his next move.

When he spoke it was with confidence of messiah, "Let the ending begin." He turned to see the figure standing next closest to him, the only one who had not moved since his arrival. The Coulian's death-head smile was cool and silver. One of the figure's arms gestured, and there was a hiss of escaping oxygen, and the maw of the skull-craft opened into a cavernous slit. The Coulian stood at the side, a grim reaper welcoming him into the new state of existence.

Without hesitation, Luthor turned and entered into that yawning mouth.

One by one, the others followed, all were now abruptly silent. The song of the Benefactor was sound enough. It permeated the assembled thirteen so surely that any noises they made became part of the song, and a harmony arose. A farewell chorale of praise and pain, a last celebration of powers and potential unleashed, a greeting for their new existence.

As the last of the thirteen entered, the mouth closed. In the same instant, the craft became suffused in an orange radiance, and with that suffusion it began to shimmer and fade from this universe, leaving only the resonating boom of its departure to echo in the cavernous depths of the Citadel forever.

* * *

The planet sat silently, waiting, rotating in an inky sea of black space, turning slowly, even at a thousand miles per hour, revealing its skin of deep blues interrupted only by small patches of greens and browns. For countless eons, the planet existed silently, orbiting near other, equally silent planets-their only companions the distant stars, small specks of silver and dust that cast an inconsistent glow, bathing the endless expanse of deep black with uneven light. There was also its solitary moon, wheeling silently and eternally around it; the recently expanded and improved space installation upon its dusty soil reflecting their light, signaling to all the universe the triumph of the new era of humanity under the guidance of their new protectors.

In the soundless sea of space, the planet's majesty took on an unshakable feeling solitude, even loneliness. It was a stillness that had lasted for nearly a year.

Until now.

In a far corner of the starry heavens, a crack appeared.

At first it seemed no larger than a wayward spark, an inconsequential shard of orange leaking out like a broken, faraway star. The boom of its arrival went unheard in the absolute silence of space. None would hear it, none would know of it, not even the senses of its mightiest and most aware of the planet's protectors.

And then it expanded, becoming an oval of defined light.

A very tall oval stretching for several hundred meters in diameter before solidifying.

A portal that once again bridged two universes that only just briefly touched twice before.

With the gateway's arrival came a whisper, a voice stretching across the face of infinite depths of the Bleed, spanning this bridge between the two universes.

_"Begin the end."_


	25. A Long Delayed Confrontation

His day began in darkness.

It was a cool, deliberate darkness caused by one being sealed away from the light twenty feet underground. Outside, white heat would have been smoldering on the dunes of the Sonoran desert, and the suffocating air would have been almost too hot to breathe. Inside the concrete and steel structure, conditions were dark and the air-conditioning kept the interior at a comfortable 68 degrees.

When the kinks in his neck, joints, and extremities made it clear to him that there would be no more rest he wearily opened his eyes, staring at the gray of the ceiling, letting out a sigh as he mentally planned out the coming day. First, he decided, he would use up some of his precious water supply to treat himself to a shower. Next he would prepare a delicious feast of a breakfast consisting of canned lamb and rice. He would of course have to recheck the baffles and sensor dampeners that concealed his hideaway from the eyes in the sky. He would then spend the afternoon cleaning and perhaps reward himself by putting on yet another film from his collection on the old movie projector. After night fell, and between the hours of one and five A.M, he would don his outdoor clothes and walk to one of the nearby towns to see what he could scrounge from the local grocery stores and shops.

There was no more grand planning, no more crimes of the century. Gone were the baroque and grandiose lairs he had enjoyed building and inhabiting: the abandoned mirror factory, the sewer headquarters, the carnival maze - all gone. Only this bomb shelter remained, buried in the earth and secure.

On some days, he woke in a panic, feeling an onset of claustrophobia, requiring several minutes to calm down, convinced that the narrow cot he was slept in was a coffin and he was buried. _I am not dead yet._ He would repeat to himself. _Not dead yet. Not dead yet. _Until the pace of his beating heart slowed.

There was always the routine to keep himself focused, what he did every day - every day for an entire year. Ever since _they_ had come, and changed everything, and he had been forced to go into hiding, to scrounge for food and supplies, and conceal his face from all the eyes that were set in place to specifically look for people like him.

Now, eyes squinting in the dim electric light, he stood up, attempting to quiet the headache caused by the blood rushing to his head. He could never forget that he lived in the desert, and just the thought of it brought the familiar imaginary dryness to his throat and psychosomatic symptoms of dehydration. The thought of all those billions of grains of sand colliding as the wind blew across them, as though symbolizing purposeless desolation.

_Not entirely purposeless,_ he reminded himself. _After all where would we get mirrors from if not grains of sand?_

He drank some bottled water that sat at the bedside of his cot. He swallowed and immediately felt better.

Just as he was about to set the plastic bottle back, he paused, sensing the intrusion before he heard it; an intuition gained from years of past criminal endeavors, a life of running and hiding.

Somewhere there was a pounding.

Startled, his hand dropped the plastic water bottle, which bounced on the floor of the bunker, spilling its liquid contents.

_So I've been found_, he thought._ They're here at last._

He had thought he had been careful, taking cautious actions. And indeed he had been. He had buried himself in the hope of escaping, planning every detail and making every preparation. Purchasing the bomb shelter, equipping it with the baffles and white-noise generators. The bomb shelter had been an easy buy, paid from his nest-egg of successful robberies. For the first few months, he had busied himself with installing the baffles and the sensor dampeners, and then his attention turned to the matter of acquiring supplies through the tried and true method of burglary.

But now that all of that was in the past, and today the ones he had sought to hide from were literally knocking at his door.

There was no fear in him. At first he might have felt frightened in those early days when he had feared discovery, but now after the many months the fear had been burned out of him, faded in the face of a repetitive daily schedule that included drills for just this event. He knew what was to be done if he was to stand a chance of evading capture.

He rushed to the bedside drawer, hands rummaging through it, setting aside candles, band-aids, a flashlight and batteries, until he found the silver bracelet. He took a second to turn it over, grinning slightly at the way the light caught and reflected the pattern of interlaced circuitry.

Lifting himself to his feet, his hand came to the lever set into the nearby bedroom wall. He pulled the bar down, and was satisfied with the whir that the mechanism made.

Without hurry, he made his way to the restroom, to the mirror. A stranger stared back at him, brown hair greasy and lank, fringing eyes that were deep-set, dark-rimmed. He was surprised to find strands of gray in the hair around his chin and temples.

It had been so long since he had last seen his own reflection - mirrors were a harsh reminder of his past and its failures; the things that resulted in his current circumstances. Now his past was rapidly catching up with him, and now there was one possible escape.

_One last time._

He extended his hand to the mirrored surface, fingers spread in a precise hand-gesture. Small diodes lit up on the metallic surface of the band, and, at the touch of his fingers, the silvery reflective surface rippled as though it were a pond of water.

Closing his eyes, he levered himself up onto the sink, and then slid through the mirror's frame. The silvery surface parted briefly, allowing his form to pass into realms inconceivable to most. But they were familiar to Samuel Scudder.

* * *

With each succeeding impact, the metal of the lead-lined wall began to deform under the assault of the ceaseless pounding, making a sound like a blacksmith's anvil under a mighty hammer. And then, finally the knuckles of a fist pierced the wall, four delicate looking knuckles breaking through steel and concrete to expose the interior to the exterior, producing four shafts of dusty light. Those four knuckles were attached to a woman's fist, one that slammed through steel and concrete. Having made a breach, the woman's second hand worked in tandem with the first to pull at the gap, widening it with a low screech of stress metal and the dull scraping of shattered stone. Puffs of concrete dust rose up to catch the growing light.

The white of the sunlight turned green as the two costumed heroes entered the false hillside that they had located and penetrated.

The woman was Diana Prince, ambassador to the world of men, princess of the Amazons, and known to most everyone as Wonder-Woman. She held a fistful of torn metal, which she threw away with a _ping-ping_ at the floor. She worked to widen the hole she had made enough to fit through. When she succeeded, she stepped over the gap and tilted her head for any sounds in the darkness.

Accompanying her was Hal Jordan, part-time pilot of Ferris Aircraft and the Green Lantern of Space Sector 2814. He followed her in, illuminating the area in front of them with a flashlight formed of radiant, green energy that floated several inches above the similarly-colored power ring on his right hand.

The two stood for a moment, breathing in the cool air-conditioned space. They seemed to be in a hallway with walls that measured seven feet high, and extended for a dozen yards to what looked like an empty elevator shaft. Darkened light bulbs were strung up every few feet, ones that were probably connected to a gasoline-fed generator when they were active.

Hal Jordan paused, and from his ring came scintillating beams of emerald light that traced the walls of the corridor; wherever they touched, a web of wires, conduits, and the circuits of electronics were outlined. They were everywhere, embedded in the walls, ceiling and floor and concealed from casual view.

The Green Lantern turned his head for a moment, as though listening to a voice only he could hear. "See this?" Jordan said, in a tone that indicated that he was fascinated. "My ring is telling me that this runs throughout the entire structure. It's a standard bomb shelter, so it's already impenetrable to x-rays, but these mask the heat signature...not that we could detect much this far underground."

"Must have been expensive," Diana commented.

Just as the two heroes took another few paces into the tunnel, something fluttered silently out of the darkness from the empty elevator shaft at the end, something as large as a man. A monster from a fever dream.

It crawled, and it scuttled into the light with dead silence. Its eyes were huge and ink-black, multifaceted, protuberant lenses, gleaming darkly and hungrily. Beneath those twin eyes, smaller, point mandibles worked ceaselessly. Above those eyes short antennae quivered.

Without warning it leapt up, suspending itself on massive, pale wings that were the color of mold, the hue of sickness. As those wings flapped and folded and spread with horrific grace and beauty, a segmented body suspended between three pairs of multi-jointed legs. In flight it was clear what it was.

It was a moth - a moth grown to impossible dimensions.

With no warning, the moth launched itself into the air, flying at them in chilling silence. Diana and Jordan ducked and crouched as the thing flew past them, circled and landed on the opposite end of the corridor.

"Hal," Diana said. "Are you...?"

"I'm fine," the Green Lantern said. "Any idea what we're dealing with?"

"Might be a mutation," Diana said. "This area is near where several nuclear tests occurred."

"Radiation doesn't really do that," Hal said. "This is something else. Ring, identify threat."

"_Processing..."_ the ring replied in a synthetic simulacrum of Hal Jordan's voice. After a moment, the ring said. _"No threat,"_

"Clarify," Hal ordered.

"_Apparent threat to user consists of manipulated photons across fixed wavelengths. Where the manipulated photons intersect-"_

"Ring," Jordan interrupted. "Are you saying that the moth is a hologram?"

"_Affirmative." _

The two heroes stared at the approaching monstrosity. For the all the world, it looked like a real insect of enormous size. The heroes knew that much from prior experience, having had innumerable encounters with such monsters under the earth, in dungeons located in Eastern Europe, as well as other dimensions and alien worlds.

They watched the moth twitter its twin antennae in agitation; its front legs patted the floor in an acoustic signal of warning. It kept its distance, but looked ready to launch itself at them.

"Ring, can you disrupt the hologram, make it go away?"

"_I can,"_ the ring replied.

_Oh good_, Jordan thought. _It's going to project this area with anti-photons and the image will..._

His thoughts were interrupted as a thin beam the width of a needle shot forward only to curve at an abrupt angle. There was a crystalline ping as the tiny mirror apparatus concealed in an upper corner of the corridor's ceiling shattered into multiple glass fragments under the blunt impact of the ring's ray.

"I guess that's taken care of," Diana said.

They walked forward, eventually coming to where the corridor ended, at the empty elevator shaft. Shining the ring's light down, about fifteen feet down, they saw that the elevator carriage was on the bottom floor.

Diana reached for the red lever that would recall the elevator carriage, only for Hal to stop her. "Wait," he said. "I think he was expecting us. That's why he set the moth loose on us. What if we get into that elevator only for it to fill with gas or concealed gun ports or something like that? I have a better idea."

He held the ring close to his heart. From it came a series of green lines and jade gears that met at right angles to form the outline of an intricate, green elevator carriage. Gleaming, cross-worked doors of emerald hue parted, revealing an interior worthy of the elevator of a five-star hotel.

The two heroes entered, and the false elevator's doors closed. Standing in the carriage, Hal directed his construct down the shaft. Being only twenty feet down, it was a short ride but Hal insisted on providing simulated elevator muzak, to which Diana smiled. The ride down then encountered a large jumble as the construct encountered the actual elevator carriage. Having been built out of will, and powered by the fundamental forces of the universe, the constructed elevator easily crunched the real elevator carriage occupying the bottom of the shaft, flattening into near two-dimensionality.

Exiting, they found themselves in a small vestibule which only had a single steel door with a rotating lock. Turning it and opening the door brought them to another long hallway, almost identical to the one on the ground flood, only this one had several doors in it.

The first door in the hall that Hal Jordan opened was revealed to be a wardrobe; the beam of his light flashed over racks of civilian clothing. In the center of them, obvious as a flag, was a yellow and olive-colored, leather costume adorned with a side holster and numerous pouches.

_At least we have the right man, _he thought, and turned to see Diana entering the room on his left. Jordan pulled at the sleeve, bringing it forward to show her.

Diana pulled a small communication device from her side. Pressing down the talk button, she said "We've found him. Tell the colonel to bring the van and a detachment of operatives. But tell them to keep their distance until we've dealt with him. We'll bring him to you. Do not follow us down here. I repeat we will handle him and bring him to you."

"Acknowledged, Wonder-Woman," a woman's voice on the other end said. "Dispatching operatives to your location now. Good luck." Diana put the communicator back on her belt and followed Hal Jordan down the hall.

Past the wardrobe, Hal entered a general purpose living room/dining room, which contained an old sofa, and an old film projector along with stacks of tinned film reels. Hal turned the light to the right - four rows of carefully organized floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with large cans of food and stacked cardboard boxes. He picked up one of the cans and read the label.

Dog food.

Jordan looked around, seeing no sign that the inhabitant of the bunker had owned a pet, leaving him the only conclusion that the canned dog food was for the occupant himself to consume.

The light illuminated rows of canned dog food leaning against the wall. The shelves above them filled with bottled water, kerosene lamps, boxes of matches, soap powders, detergents, and the like. There were sealed cardboard boxes from dozens of different brands of grocery stores, probably containing more of the same filling the rest of the bunker's space.

Next they entered the bunker's small kitchen. It was a cluttered place, but also stark and minimal. There were tall shelves filled with canned foods and bottles of beer, shelves and racks and bins laden with bottles of wine and liquor, and other racks brimming with paperbacks, magazines, and newspapers. Cigars and cigarettes wear stacked in boxes and cartons, and tins of pipe tobacco were displayed in haphazard mounds on the single countertop.

Exiting, they both entered the second to last room in the bunker. It turned out to be a bedroom, and it was there that they saw the body of the man they sought.

He hadn't been dead long. His eyes were open bulging from his pale, congested face, and appeared to be looking upward. The mouth was slack, exposing his teeth, and a purple tongue protruded from his mouth. His thin, malnourished body dressed in his cowled orange and green costume – the very same costume that they had found hanging on a rack down the hall – dangled from a supporting metal beam by a length of sturdy rope. His weight had stretched the tendons and muscles of his neck to looked like an absurd length.

Both heroes entered, walking around and eyeing the hanged man hanging in the middle. Being in the same room as a corpse should have made them uneasy, but instead the manner of the heroes was casual, almost incredulous.

"Did he really think that this would fool us?" Diana asked. She reached out to touch the hanged man, and at her touch, the image turned to static where her finger made contact with it.

"Don't be too critical," Hal said. "I mean he probably put a lot of effort into this. I'll be the first to admit that it is a very good illusion. Every detail, I would say, is perfect."

"But it was still just another hologram, like the moth upstairs," Diana said. The two heroes looked up and saw a second crystalline projector set in the corner of the room's ceiling.

In the bedroom, near the cot, they noticed that there was a one-foot-wide, eighteen-inch-high recess in the left-hand wall. A steel rod with a rubber hand-grip protruded from a slot in this recess. It was in the down position.

Diana walked over and raised the rod, which made a ratcheting noise. There was a sound of gears clicking somewhere in the walls. With a hum and sizzle the image of the hung man dissipated.

They next entered the adjoining bathroom, where they found a sink, a small corner shower stall, more packaged food, bottled water, and a corner toilet. But what most held their attention was the large mirror above the bathroom's sink.

"He's not here," Diana declared, after they had searched each of the five rooms in the bunker.

"Where could he have gone to?" Hal asked. There was a note of sarcasm in the man's voice as his finger tapped the surface of the large mirror above the sink in the bathroom. "Ring, locate previously designated target."

"_Request acknowledged,"_ a synthetic sounding voice coming from the ring said. _"Subject found. Subject no longer located in space sector 2814."_

"Location of subject?" Jordan asked.

"_Designated subject is now residing in fifth continuum."_

"Show me," Jordan commanded.

An instant later, a green dotted line appeared in the air, leading from the ring right into the center of the mirror before disappearing into a hazy green blur. Still, the direction was clear.

"Hmm," Hal said. "Then we might as well take it with us." He pointed his ring at the mirror, from which came a multitude of transparent green tools: hammers, screwdrivers, crowbars and levers. As Hal's brow furrowed in concentration, the constructed tools attacked the mirror's wooden frame, extricating it from the bathroom wall it was attached to. In a few minutes, he had loosened the nails and fasteners. Instantly the tools disappeared, only to be replaced by two green-glowing hands of stupendous size cradled the extricated bathroom mirror.

With the mirror-frame with them, the two heroes retraced their way to the empty elevator shaft. Together, they ascended to the ground floor, walked again the length of the ground-level hallway. Diana went first out through the hole in the wall, followed by Jordan with the mirror.

Now outside, in front of the formerly concealed entrance of the bomb-shelter and blinded by the desert sun at first they could not see the assembled men, nor the van. But he could hear the subdued whirring of helicopter blades.

Blinking, they saw that there were two black helicopters - each a small single-rotor transport, a single unmarked van painted white, and a platoon of SDI commandos and a team of technicians securing the perimeter. Both the van and the helicopters lacked any form of insignia or identification.

The technicians were sweating in their blue coveralls, their hips weighed down by the array of tools and monitoring equipments on their belts. Their eyes were alert, eager and curious.

The commandos were armored in Model Kevlar vest with ballistic steel shock plates over the heart region. Each wore a shining black riot helmet fitted with shatterproof acrylic face shields equipped with built-in microphones for continuous coordination and communication. Like the technicians, they wore utility belts, but these were festooned with ammunition, handcuffs and various grenades.

They put on an admirable brave front, but there was an almost palpable atmosphere of anxiety. Perhaps it was the auras of the two heroes; an almost palpable feeling of power and authority. Or maybe it was because they were assisting in the apprehension of one of the last great super-villains. They gripped their weapons slightly tighter as Hal Jordan and Diana Prince approached them.

With care, the two glowing green hands placed the mirror in the center of the commotion. Hal motioned for the crowd to take a step back.

"Ring," Jordan commanded. "Retrieve designated target from fifth continuum."

"_Retrieval commencing," _the ring replied. A pencil-thin ray of green light extended from the ring, instantly breaking into a dozen tendrils, each with a miniature human hand attached to it. As one, the hands reached into the silvery surface of the mirror. The light did not refract or reflect but was absorbed as though the mirror were the event horizon of a black hole.

A second later, a brown-haired man burst forth from the mirror's surface with an audible gasp, shot from the black wooden frame like something vomited from the maw of a great beast. Now fully returned to the world, he landed in a pile on the ground. He struggled against the multitude of hands clutching at his shoulders, ankles, wrists and midsection. Instantly Diana reached for the golden lasso strapped to her side. In a moment too fast for the unaided eye to follow, she had wrapped the lasso around the man's shoulders. She pulled tight, and the man fell over like a wrangled steer.

One commando pulled his arm outward, and plucked the silver bracelet from his wrist. After a second of examination, the commando handed the object to a technician who then placed the bracelet into a small, plastic evidence bag. The commando then replaced the bracelet with a metal handcuff.

Without his green and orange costume, the brown-haired man looked powerless and mundane. He now wore only a white t-shirt and blue jeans. Once the brown-haired man kneeling in the dust of the desert floor had been fit and athletic, but now was soft and lanky from a lack of exercise, as well as a diet of bland meats and rices. His eyes, blinking against the desert sun, were bruised from his habit of sleeping during the day and prowling at night.

"Samuel Joseph Scudder," said a loud voice. "Also known as the Maker of Mirrors."

The voice's owner stepped out from the crowd of soldiers and technicians, a man in his mid-thirties. He was strikingly handsome, with neatly coiffed brown hair. The bright desert sun glinted off his mirrored shaded sunglasses. Unlike the commandos and techies, he wore a black t-shirt, dark pants, his hands were covered in black gloves; a holster carrying a M1911, semi-automatic pistol adorned his side. The way he walked and carried himself indicated that the man more than self-confidence. There was a subtle but unmistakable arrogance in the man's expression, in his walk towards the prisoner kneeling in the sand. The air of pride about him seemed natural, an aura of animal magnetism that allowed him to be convincing even in his arrogance. Most would see him as a confident and a friend. Whatever arrogance he had possessed was justified, at least to himself, if not in others.

"That's Mirror Master to you," Scudder replied, a grim smile etching itself across his unshaven features as though an old joke fitted through his mind. "Seems you have the advantage of me."

"Name's 'Lord,' " The man smiled at the baffled look on Scudder's face. "No, that isn't a title. I'm Special-Agent Maxwell Lord. And these gentlemen," he gestured to the assembled soldiers and technicians, "will be your entourage for your trip back to our secure facilities. I'm sure that you'll find them to be amicable to your special needs. The place you're going is what I like to call the 'the Menagerie' you'll be treated with first-class care and providing lots of rewarding and exciting activities. Some of the other guests I'm sure you'll recognize, and know from prior encounters. Let's see, that would include Hartley Rathaway, James Jesse, George Harkness...Too bad we never found Snart. Oh well, I'm sure you'll make do."

"Who ratted me out?" asked Scudder, face angled towards the ground.

"We now have certain...resources," Jordan said.

"Yes," Maxwell said, removing his shades. "Our G.E.E.C computer tracked your purchase of this shelter to a banking account under an alias you were known to have previously used on numerous occasions. That, and the break-ins that were reported in the local towns all but confirmed that you were up to your old tricks. The locals in these parts haven't been too keen on your nocturnal activities. Strange... there were never any reports of money being taken. So somehow there were some doubts that it was really you."

"Only took what I needed," Scudder said. "Food and clothing mostly."

"We took our time in finding you," Maxwell said. "You were not a priority, being just a petty crook. Not a Felix Faust, a Weather-Wizard, or even a Fearo..."

"You could have joined us, Joseph," Hal said, interjecting. "We extended our offer to every super-villain in the world, not just the Legion. After you had served your time, someone like you could have helped us immensely. Other than dog food, you would have least had a nice steak once in awhile. You would have a comfy bed rather than a cot in a bomb shelter buried twenty feet underground. What did you think you were hiding from? There are no more warheads..."

"Oh, I was hiding from your new eyes in the sky," Scudder said. "You know, 'Big Brother is Watching', and all that..."

"How do you know about that?" Maxwell asked. "Who told you?"

"Oh, I heard things," Scudder said. "I'm more … what you would call perceptive than I've been given credit for. Had a lot of time to think about these things. Did my own investigating, you could say."

"Whatever that means," Maxwell said. "What's important is that today you've made us all very happy. Your name was one of the last things on our 'scavenger hunt' - one of the last of the so-called 'super-villains' unaccounted for. Judging by the state of your living conditions I imagine that things have been rather rough for you."

"Yeah," Scudder said. "Ever since the Legion o' Doom went poof and disappeared, I've been out of work. Used to do commissions for them. Now look at me."

"Where _is_ the Legion of Doom?" Maxwell said directly.

"Haven't the faintest," Scudder muttered.

"He's telling the truth," Diana said, giving the lasso a tug for emphasis.

"Shame," Maxwell Lord looked off into the sunset. "We were hoping that you knew." Maxwell Lord paused, and turned his back. "Also sorry that the Flash couldn't be here to see this. One of his most persistent enemies kneeling in the dust."

"When you see the Flash again, tell him it was only business. Had I known this is how I ended up, I'd have never messed him...would have never have even put on the costume. Tell him..."

Scudder swallowed and then whispered. "Tell him I'm sorry."

"I'm sure he knows how you feel," Maxwell said. "Put him in the van."

Diana withdrew her lasso, and the restraining commandos led Scudder to the white-painted vehicle parked next to one of the helicopters. The rear doors opened, revealing an interior that had been entirely covered in black spray-paint, which had then been smeared. The inside was matte-black, with not a single reflective surface. The windows had been entirely blacked out. The commandos seated Scudder and attached his handcuffed hand to a length of metal pipe set in the middle of the van's back.

Maxwell next pointed to the technicians and said. "I want you all to sweep that entire bunker. Be sure to get everything in boxes for the haul back to H.Q within the hour. We're on a schedule here, and I want to be out of here while its still bright and early."

The team of technicians surged forward, taking out their tools as they converged on the hole in the side of the artificial hill where Scudder's bunker lay.

As one of the techies passed, Hal Jordan tapped his shoulder and whispered, "elevator's out. I'm sorry about that."

The technician smiled politely and pulled out a length of robe from one of the pouches. "I can handle that, sir. Won't be a problem."

"Glad to hear it," Jordan replied.

"Agent Lord," Diana said.

Maxwell turned and smiled. "Please, call me Max. All of my friends do."

"Could we have a moment?" she waved him aside. "Away from your men?"

"Of course," he said. "For you, anything."

"Green Lantern, Wonder-Woman," the agent said. "Let me first say I am a great admirer of both of you. I have roots in Coast City. What you both did in central-"

"Mr. Lord," Diana cut him off by raising her hand. "We were expecting Colonel Wilcox."

"Yeah, about the colonel," Maxwell said. "Apparently he had an assignment in Manhattan. He wanted to inspect the facilities of the new domed habitat being built there. So the department sent me instead."

"I see," Diana said.

"Is this going to be a problem?"

"Oh no," Hal said, a sarcastic tone. "That's just fine. It's not like we're not used to having billionaire industrialists arrest super villains. What really bothers us is why, after so many months of apprehending these guys, are we only now hearing that they were being sent to a secret facility and not to any kind of normal prison? Does the colonel know about your 'menagerie'?"

"I'm sure that he does," Maxwell said.

"For some reason I doubt that," Diana interjected. "I think that he would have mentioned it had he known."

"Well, we are the _Secret_ Department of Investigation..." Maxwell said. "It's not in our business to let things like that be known. I'm not aware of his exact reasons for keeping you in the dark about this. I don't know why considering what you and the colonel have done together...some truly outstanding things, I might add."

"Together, yes," Diana said. "We want continue to do great things, but cooperation is built upon a foundation of trust."

"So, you trust Colonel Wilcox," Maxwell said. "But you're saying that you don't trust me because I'm not him? I'm sorry if I disappoint, but that you haven't given me much of an opportunity to prove myself. Tell me. Is there anything that I can do to put your minds at ease."

"Yes, I believe so," Diana said. "We would just like a small reassurance. A small service."

"And what would that be?" the agent asked.

"Full disclosure," Diana said. "One day we would like to perform an inspection of our own of that 'facility' you told Scudder about."

"The inmates are doing some very important work for us," Maxwell assured. "And since you and the other 'Super Friends' were the arresting persons, I have some reason to suspect that your presence there would trigger undue anxiety in them, possibly leading to a significant disruption in their work-schedule that could cause an unacceptable delay-."

She cut him off. "How many of our Rogue's Gallery do you have locked up there, and how are they being treated?"

"What do you mean?" Maxwell asked.

"For instance," Diana began "Do they have the same chances for rehabilitation and reform as they would in a normal prison, or do you plan to keep them as permanent residents? Are they ever going to have their day in court? Do you schedule parole hearings for your inmates?"

"Please, I understand your concern, but I'm only-" Maxwell's eyes narrowed slightly. "If you meant people like Scudder or Mardon or Hall, or any of the countless petty rogues, I could begin to agree with you. They are human beings...well most are human, and they do have basic rights that we must acknowledge, but..."

"Go on."

"But would you say the same for one individual in particular? One special guest at our little resort that I could name?"

"Who?" Diana asked.

Maxwell stared at Diana, his voice going low. "The one we keep locked up in a silver-lined vault at the end of the hall on sub-level six. I personally make it my business to see that the garlic hung on his cell door is always replaced and kept fresh. The guards on sub-level six don't have guns, but they got plenty of holy water and crucifixes delivered straight from the Holy See."

Diana gave a slight, involuntary shudder.

"Yeah," Maxwell said. "That one. Would you like to open his cell door for a face-to-face interview? Maybe he would tell you if he was being mistreated or not. No, probably not. I imagine his throat's pretty dry and he can't talk. He'd need something to drink first. He's always thirsty and it's been awhile since he's had an open artery to suck on. Maybe you'd like to accommodate him. Just open the door, bear your throat. He'll take care of the rest..."

"You should have _destroyed_ him!" Diana exclaimed. "Driven a stake through his black heart..."

"Oh," the agent said. "A change of attitude, princess? What if studying his blood leads to a cure for sickle-cell anemia? What if next week through reasons that aren't immediately clear, his curse ends and he's human again? Who knows? It's a new year...1980, a whole new decade. Just one year since that historic speech at the U.N has seen more change than the last hundred years. Look, why does even it matter that I'm the arresting agent, and not Wilcox? My superiors in the department felt that I was perfectly qualified-"

"Well, for starters, he always respected the super villains at all the previous apprehensions," Jordan said. "He never cracked jokes, or treated the situation with anything other than the utmost seriousness. It was a seriousness that came from prior experience. He just knew just what he was dealing with. He didn't...he didn't not taunt a bound giant."

"You think of Scudder as a giant?" Maxwell asked.

Hal swallowed and said "Scudder found a way to take a piece of simple glass and used it to take over his mind of his defense attorney. He could open doorways to entirely new realms of existence. In other words, Scudder did things with a hand-mirror – like the one you shaved with this morning – what I thought only something like my ring, the most powerful weapon in the universe, was capable of. To this day, we still have no idea how he did it. That, at least to me, is a frightening thought."

"And Scudder's only one of many others," Diana pointed out. "That is why we need to make sure that the genies are in their bottle. We need to inspect your 'menagerie', and determine for ourselves which ones we need to lock up forever and which ones can be redeemed and offered a chance to reform. We can't do anything like that without full disclosure."

Maxwell nodded, his tone softening. "I will pass along your request to my superiors in the department. Best that I can do." He paused. "I see that you are under a lot stress. We all are. Rebuilding this messed-up world from the ground up is hard work. That's the reason I came out here. So that I could personally pitch in and help in some small way and-."

Both the two heroes and the agent stopped, and turned at a sound.

The sound was a rustle, as though something were shaking in the sands at their feet. At first they didn't notice it. Then there was a groan, like the cracking strain of old wood expanding due to a change in temperature.

Everyone present turned. They looked and saw that the mirror frame was moving, rattling from side to side as though alive.

"What is that?" Maxwell asked.

The mirror frame skipped; it_ bounced._ It angled itself upward to stand vertically, before turning to the right to balance on one of its corners.

All those present stared mesmerized, the spectacle so bizarre, too surreal.

Still balanced on one corner, the square mirror-frame did a merry pirouette.

"Something..." Jordan began, face set with determination. "Something else is coming through. Something from the mirror dimension that Scudder was in."

As the it spun, the mirror's frame changed. The lines of the frame's edges seemed to bend and warp, as though it was made of rubber instead of glass and wood.

"Get back!" Maxwell shouted at his people as the mirror frame continued its bizarre transformation.

Its edges and corners bent and contorted around themselves in impossible violations of geometry.

The frame cast peculiar shadows, cast by things or beings beyond the mirror's surface, appearing to twist around each other and swarm across one's field of vision. The viewers felt an onrush of nausea as they were offered brief glimpses of a reality existing in more than four dimensions; dimensions not meant for human sight. One of the soldiers displayed symptoms of epilepsy. Another removed his mask and vomited hard.

Then, without any sore warning, the mirror frame launched itself into the sky like a propelled rocket, blasting desert sand particles in all directions.

For a moment, everyone was stunned. They stared upwards, seeing the mirror-frame spin and twirl before disappearing into the blue sky.

Maxwell Lord was first to shrug off the shock. He ran to the window of the nearest of the two black helicopters, saying to the pilot. "Did you get its direction?"

The pilot looked at the oscillating radar screen, saying "It's on an eastward trajectory."

"Get the Brother Eye satellites on this," he told the pilot "Find out where it is going."

"On it," the pilot replied.

"Where is it heading?" Maxwell asked a moment later.

After a pause, the pilot said. "Metropolis. The object is heading in the direction of Metropolis. In fact there's right now."

"Did you hear that?" Maxwell said. "It crossed the continent in less than a minute! What are we dealing with? Have anything like this happened before?"

Diana shook her head, saying "We need to get back there. She grabbed Hal's shoulder.

"Superman," Hal held the ring to his mouth, speaking into it. "Something else came out of Scudder's mirror. I repeat, something came out of the mirror and it is now heading in your direction. I repeat. It is heading in your direction."


End file.
